A Silent Epidemic: Revisiting the 2013 Reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act to Better Protect American Indian and Alaska Native Women

This article explores the results of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012 (VAWA), focusing particularly on various situations where it fails to protect Indigenous women. The author discusses the need for an expansion of VAWA to better protect the rights of the Indigenous women inhabiting American Indian and Alaska. The author’s key recommendation is to add a “stranger and acquaintance violence” to provide coverage for victims that do not meet the “dating” or “domestic violence” situations that VAWA currently offers protection against.