美国国家公共电台 NPR 7 States Step Up Efforts To Fight Violence Against Indigenous Women

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

How do you investigate a crime when the victim lives in two nations at once? It is an urgent question for women who are citizens of the United States and also citizens of Native nations because Native women are being murdered at shocking rates. Seven states have now set up special task forces to address this problem. Melodie Edwards of Wyoming Public Radio has a story that some listeners will find disturbing, and it begins with the story of a single crime.

MELODIE EDWARDS, BYLINE¹: It's been seven years now since passing boaters found Dawn Day's body floating in a Wyoming lake. But still, her dad, Gregory Day, and her aunt, Madeleine Day, talk about her laughter.

MADELEINE DAY: She was crazy. Crazy...

GREGORY DAY: Crazy in a good way, though.

M DAY: Yeah.

G DAY: Make you laugh, you know. Just...

M DAY: That's what she did. She always wanted everybody to be happy.

EDWARDS: And Madeleine says it was trying to make people happy that kept Dawn from leaving an abusive boyfriend.

M DAY: She has that puppy dog syndrome², you know. Like, I can fix you. I can - you can't. How are you going to fix somebody that strangles you or throws you out of a car, that throws you in a fire? You know, that's not love. You can't fix them.

EDWARDS: The autopsy³ called the cause of Dawn Day's death undetermined. But Gregory and Madeleine say they know what killed her, and it was not drowning.

G DAY: There was no water in her nose. Her lips weren't blue. She was just beaten to death.

M DAY: Yeah.

EDWARDS: But as with many Native women's deaths, Dawn Day's was never classified as a homicide. In the end, prosecutors⁴ didn't bring charges, and police never closed the case. Now Madeleine Day is worried that her own daughter will be next, since she too is in an abusive relationship.

M DAY: If she don't get some kind of help, she's going to be laying right next to my niece.

EDWARDS: Native girls and women are 10 times more likely than average to be the victim of a violent crime. One organization working to educate the public about solutions to violence in Indian Country is Not Our Native Daughters. Lynette Grey Bull is the director, and she too is a survivor⁵ of attempted murder by an intimate partner. Grey Bull says, while speaking at a reservation high school recently...

LYNETTE GREY BULL: When I asked the audience how many had either missing or murdered family members in their own family, I would say at least 40% of the room, hands went up.

EDWARDS: Such experiences prompted her to speak up during a Missing and Murdered Indigenous⁶ Women's March on the University of Wyoming campus this spring. Grey Bull addressed Wyoming's Governor Mark Gordon directly, asking him to take action. Then Governor Gordon got up.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARK GORDON: Thank you, Lynette, for your comment about - we need to do a task force. Senator Ellis and I just talked about, let's do this. So we will.

EDWARDS: Governor Gordon is referring to state senator and Navajo tribal⁷ member Affie Ellis. Ellis was an author of a 2015 congressional report called "A Road Map For Making Native America Safer." She says a few states are adopting these task forces - New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota - but it's just an early step.

AFFIE ELLIS: I'm always a little reluctant to be too excited about a task force.

EDWARDS: But she says it could help get Wyoming's Division of Criminal Investigation⁸ access to national missing persons data to figure out who's going missing where. Ellis says the state can also help implement⁹ an Amber¹⁰ Alert system on the reservation to aid in finding Native children who disappear. But when it comes to investigating murders like Dawn Day's, Ellis says the state's hands are tied.

ELLIS: We have a very complicated jurisdictional¹² maze¹³. Depending on who the race of the victim, the race of the perpetrator and where the crime occurred, it will depend on who has jurisdiction¹¹ - either the state, the federal government or tribes.

EDWARDS: She says that's why so many cases fall through the cracks. Ellis plans to start tackling these problems at the task force's first meeting next month.

For NPR News, I'm Melodie Edwards on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

3 autopsy   

n.尸体解剖；尸检

参考例句：

• They're carrying out an autopsy on the victim.他们正在给受害者验尸。
• A hemorrhagic gut was the predominant lesion at autopsy.尸检的主要发现是肠出血。

4 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

5 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

6 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

7 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

8 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

9 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

10 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

11 jurisdiction   

n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权

参考例句：

• It doesn't lie within my jurisdiction to set you free.我无权将你释放。
• Changzhou is under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province.常州隶属江苏省。

12 jurisdictional   

adj. 司法权的，裁决权的，管辖权的

参考例句：

• In practice, however, this jurisdictional limit on administrative investigations is generally easy to satisfy. 然而在实践中，对行政调查的这种司法限制通常很容易符合规定标准。
• The jurisdictional amount is set by statute and is currently $80,000. 案件标的管辖权由法律规定，目前是80，000美元。 来自口语例句

13 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。