"The passage of a U.S. law last summer was intended, in part, to curb violence against American Indian and Alaskan Native women.

But underfunding and legal limitations have made it largely irrelevant, said Sarah Deer, a citizen of the Creek Nation, Okla., and a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn.

"I don't think there's been change for Indian women in the past 500 years," Deer said in a recent phone interview. "I don't think we've begun to turn it around yet."

The Tribal Law and Order Act, passed in July, grants tribal courts--weak but autonomous--the right to sentence Indian criminal offenders to three years in prison, not just one. It also provides for stronger and larger ranks of tribal police and technical assistance for tribal courts' investigations and prosecutions."

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Short Funds Crimp Tribal Women's Safety Law (Womens eNews 10/13)