[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 93 (Monday, July 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            CHILD ABUSE ON NORTH DAKOTA INDIAN RESERVATIONS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I held a hearing a few weeks ago on the 
subject of child abuse on Indian reservations in this country, and I 
wanted to talk just a few minutes today about that subject.
  As I do, let me be clear that the issue of child abuse is not only an 
issue on Indian reservations but is a compelling and gripping issue of 
enormous proportions everywhere. But it especially terrorizes many 
youngsters on Indian reservations precisely because of the rampant 
poverty and associated problems on those reservations. I wanted to 
share with my colleagues some of the results of that hearing.
  Let me tell you about a boy named Joe, who testified at my hearing. 
Joe and his brothers and sisters hid when their mother returned home at 
night in a alcoholic drunken stupor. They feared that when she found 
them she would beat them, as she almost always did when she'd been 
drinking.
  Joe testified that he and his siblings were taken from their mother 
after she'd stopped feeding and clothing them. But the foster homes 
they were placed in were even worse. The youngest child was locked away 
in a room, left to starve, while the foster parents drank themselves 
into oblivion.
  Joe and his brothers and sisters were physically abused by those 
foster parents, and one sister repeatedly tried to kill herself.
  Also testifying at my hearing was a young woman named Geraldine, from 
the Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation. She told me of being abused 
by alcoholic parents so frequently, that she turned to alcohol at age 8 
for escape. At age 15 she was an alcoholic.
  A social worker from one reservation in North Dakota testified that 
in a 2-week period on that rather small reservation eight children 
attempted suicide.
  Another social worker told of seven teenage boys locked in a prison 
cell designed for two adult men because they had gotten into trouble 
and there was nowhere else to put them, and sending them to an abusive 
household was not the answer. So seven teenage boys, she said, are 
locked in jail in a cell built for two adults.
  These are painful case histories almost too cruel for one lifetime 
let alone the tender years of childhood.
  I have worked on this issue for a number of years. I recall going to 
the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and meeting a little girl who 
looked very troubled. Her name was Tamara Demeres. About 3 years 
earlier, Tamara, who was living with her grandfather Reginald 
Burnthorse, was placed in a foster home. She was 2 years old at the 
time. The foster parents with whom she was placed beat her severely, 
broke her nose and arm, and pulled out her hair from its roots.
  The social worker handling Tamara's case was, at the time, burdened 
with 200 other cases. The social worker simply lacked the opportunity 
to keep track of which foster home would be a safe haven for a 2-year-
old girl. Not while managing a 200 person caseload. So this little 2-
year-old was placed, by the child protection system, in a terribly 
abusive environment, was beaten severely, and no one was able to 
protect her.
  Tamara survived. I expect she will be scarred for life. And I, as a 
result of meeting Tamara that day on the Standing Rock Reservation, 
became involved in the issue of child abuse. I helped that reservation 
staff its child protective services with 12 additional social workers. 
In that instance, we took action that is making a difference.
  At my recent hearing in North Dakota, I heard again, the tales of 
tragedy about defenseless youngsters. There is something fundamentally 
wrong. These are children for whom we are responsible. We have a trust 
responsibility for Indian children, and we are not meeting it.
  The social services director from Fort Berthold testified at my 
hearing that escalating problems of child abuse and alcoholism on the 
reservations have become a pattern from generation to generation. She 
said that with each new generation, the tribe is experiencing more 
severe manifestations of alcoholism, child abuse, and incest, 
accompanied by actual deaths by alcohol-related car crashes, domestic 
violence, child abuse, suicide and, yes, homicide.
  And she said--and this is not a surprise--there are only limited 
therapeutic services available at Fort. Berthold.
  One social services director began her testimony weeping and sobbing. 
She said that finding transportation to drive an individual to 
treatment or counseling is a major challenge. She said that files are 
on the floor of reported incidents of child abuse, and that social 
workers have no idea whether the files have been investigated, whether 
children at risk are living in abusive households. She said that 13 
employees have come and gone in the child protective offices of that 
reservation in 2 years, creating chaos and little continuity.
   I asked that social services director to share with me a 
representative sample of the kinds of cases with which she must deal. 
Let me share with you some of these case histories.
  A two-parent household on the reservation included several children, 
ranging from 5 to 17 years of age. The father sexually abused one of 
the daughters and is now in Federal prison. The mother, an alcoholic, 
has since lost custody of all of the children because she has severely 
neglected them. The victim of the abuse is now living in another State 
with a relative. The eldest child is pregnant. Another daughter is in 
treatment for inhalant abuse and attempting to start two fires. And the 
remainder of the children are placed in various other homes on the 
reservation--this is all about one family.
  Another case involves an 18-year-old girl who remains in the child 
welfare system, due to limited mental functioning ability. She entered 
the system at age 1. Her father had killed his son. As a result, the 
parental rights were terminated, and this child and her siblings all 
entered the foster care system. This child, 18 years of age, has been 
in 15 different foster homes, finally returned to the reservation, and 
recently was a victim of a brutal rape in which she nearly did not 
survive. The child has now been placed in a protective environment in 
another part of my State.
  A 3-year-old child was beaten with a hanger by the parent's 
significant other. That child entered foster care, where she remains, 
because the parent continues to remain with the significant other, who, 
incidentally, has received no significant counseling and apparently no 
citation for beating the child with the clothes hanger.
  An 11-year-old child entered the foster system when she was 3. Her 
most recent placement centers on the child hallucinating from repeated 
inhalant abuse. This is an 11-year-old child. She reportedly was 
involved in inhalant abuse with her mother. The child is now in a group 
home, the father is homeless, and the mother has simply moved away.
  Finally, the story of a 15-year-old child who began informing the 
child welfare system she was being sexually abused by her mother's 
boyfriend. Since the reporting began, the child has been in several 
alcoholic treatment facilities and not until this last placement, which 
is in another State, has the child received any services at all to help 
her deal with the sexual abuse. The alleged perpetuator of the incident 
has never been charged, and the mother has never received any 
counseling either for this tragedy.
  You know, I suppose for some, this is almost a tedious list of 
ongoing tragedies. But they are tragedies nonetheless.
  Somewhere tonight a young child--age 2, age 4, age 6--is cowering in 
a closet in fear of being beaten or sexually abused. This child may 
well have already been reported to the authorities as someone who has 
been abused or beaten badly. And this child may be a name simply on a 
folder lying on the floor somewhere, never investigated and never 
responded to.
  That child is our responsibility. We must, it seems to me, find a way 
to give hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless.
  Child abuse on Indian reservations stems from the terrible problems 
native Americans face today--despair, poverty, self-destruction. 
Solving this national tragedy is a huge undertaking that we can only 
begin to solve if we start right away.
  I do know that every child in America belongs to all of us; because 
our children are our most precious natural resource.
  I am hoping that we will find ways in the appropriations bills to 
provide the resources for the social workers, for the caseworkers, for 
the therapy, for the treatment, for the medicine, for the foster homes, 
and for all the things that are necessary for us to give hope to some 
young child that today has no hope.
  This is a problem of enormous proportions. It is a problem that is 
costing children their lives.
  I have been working with the staff of an appropriations subcommittee 
to see if we cannot at least take one small step in addressing this 
issue this year. But we need to take a larger step, and then an even 
larger step than that, if we care about the children living on Indian 
reservations who are now the victims of abuse and neglect.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I again thank the managers for 
the time.
  Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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