abuse

Today is a big push to try and save Pretty Bird Woman House, a women's shelter on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. I have brought up the Pretty Bird Woman House Woman's Shelter before when I discussed the horrific Amnesty International report on the high incidence of rapes of Native American women by outsiders who seldom get procecuted. This shelter's sad story has continued. It was vandalized and is not being sold off. This will leave many women on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation with no support system. On Daily Kos a fundraiser is ongoing to raise enough money to buy the property and set it up to be a safe and secure women's shelter again.

I am asking you to help out. I donated $100. Some are donating as much as $500. This is pure, old fashioned good works in keeping with the holiday season.

Bottom line is, this shelter has in essence been shut down by lack of funds and vandalism. But the netroots are on the verge of saving it by helping buy it outright. The shelter has been recently awarded a Federal grant which can keep it going...but only if it has a place and it won't have a place if we don't help them buy the property.

Here is the background and scoop sent to me by a fellow blogger working on this:

About Pretty Bird Woman House

The shelter was founded in memory of Ivy Archambault, whose Lakota name translates to Pretty Bird Woman. In 2001, Pretty Bird Woman was kidnapped, raped and beaten to death. Her sister, Jackie Brown Otter, decided that something had to be done for other victims, to put an end to this nightmare.

I'm writing this on Mother's Day, a day that is filled with joy and also bittersweet for this year my grandsons and granddaughter have been given their freedom, the freedom to live without fear, without danger, without verbal or physical abuse, without the scourge that drugs bring into a home, without hunger or wanting of a different life, a better life, a secure and safe life, a home to call their own, a bedroom in which to lay their heads at night and know the nightmare is over, that they are wrapped up in the bosom of the love of a family who will do everything in our power to show them it doesn't have to be the way it has been for so many years, that peace and freedom are theirs now, that they have a future they only dreamed of, that it has finally come, the day of liberation for them, a glorious day.

My son has been in a custody fight for his children for several months, it's been a difficult time but has come to a happy ending but it brings with it the pain of a mother who has lost her way and hope by those who have watched that she finds a better way.

I say bittersweet in the title because this Mother's Day is a day of hope and wonder, the hope of dreams lost coming true, the hope that we can turn away from drugs and alcohol, the hope that we will find it in us to reach further than a glass pipe or a bottle, the hope that we have it in us to do better for our children, the hope that we can save ourselves and thus save our children. That the we that once was my son and me becomes the we for my daughter-in-law as well.

A couple of weeks ago Japanese Prime Minister Abe turned his back on law and justice, declaring that there is no evidence that the Japanese army coerced women into serving as sex slaves during and before WW II. Although Japan is one of my favorite nations to visit and a culture I admire greatly, I find it shocking that Japan cannot face up to the mistakes of their past and I realize that this failure is the primary reason why they are still hated by all their neighbors.

I wanted to once again remind our readers that Abe's comments are atrocious and go against international opinion. From the report of the International Commission of Jurists:

"It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military ... [Japan] violated customary norms of international law concerning war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery and the trafficking in women and children ... Japan should take full responsibility now, and make suitable restitution to the victims and their families."

International Commission of Jurists, November 1994