Cedar Wilkie Gillette: Pipeline Expansion Means Increased Violence Against Tribal Women | HuffPost

18.7.17

Pipeline Expansion Means Increased Violence Against Tribal Women | HuffPost: I worked 60 hours a week in my first six months as a tribal victim advocate, with only three other advocates, transporting clients 70 miles off the reservation to get MRI scans, rape kits, and relocate for safety because my reservation did not have a hospital or a battered women’s shelter. In my first month, I was called to the tribal police station to meet a victim but when I got there I was told the police were still trying to locate her because although she had a cell phone and called 911 over twenty times, the dispatcher could not triangulate her location. The man camp where she was assaulted was unknown to the police, as many man camps have no addresses and cannot be found on a map or traced by GPS. Tribal police found her alive two hours later, walking on a highway, having survived a horrendous attack from her boyfriend. This day still sends chills down my spine because this was when I realized how vulnerable women are to the invisibility of these man camps.