You may remember Mariane Pearl, the wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. Now, the Glamour mag journalist and “woman of the year 2007,” has created “The Land Where Rapists Go Free” on the sexual abuse of Alaskan and Native American women as a part of her Global Diaries series.  In the series, she travels around the globe to find ordinary women who are changing the world, typically focusing on problems that disproportionately affect women. 

Pearl says,  ”I’ve come here to report on another tragedy that gets far too little attention: According to U.S. Justice Department figures, more than one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, and they are two and a half times more likely to be sexually assaulted or raped than non-Native women. 

Watch the story below of Louisa, who survived rape.  She gives facts about the abuse and corrupt judicial system and the life-changing troubles she has gone through since her rape. Louisa now works at a shelter in an Alaskan village for Alaskan Native women who have survived sexual violence; the only shelter of its kind seen for over 500 miles.

Learn about Breakthrough’s women’s rights work HERE.

July 29, 2009 by katherine
Tags: Alaska, Daniel Pearl, global diaries, Mariane Pearl, rape, sexual abuse, The Land Where Rapists Go Free, women in Alaska, women's rights