Skabewis

by Chris Graef
News From Indian Country

Charon Asetoyer, Comanche, is founder and executive director of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, a grass-roots women’s health institute on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota, past executive director and founder of Native American Community Board, committee member of the National Minority AIDS Council and past board member of the Indigenous Women’s Network and the National Women’s Health Network.

In 1978, AIM orchestrated The Longest Walk from Canada across the United States to protest anti-Indian legislation that would abrogate treaties and to address the issues of American Indian religious freedom, the desecration of graves and the thousands of Native women who were being sterilized in a government program.

Sterilization abuse was uncovered when AIM absconded with BIA documents during their 1972 occupation of the building in Washington, D.C. The files revealed that 42 percent of Indian women had been sterilized.

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