A/HRC/21/47/Add.1 Estimates are that nearly 80 per cent of the rapes of indigenous women are by nonindigenous men, many of who have made their way into indigenous communities but who are not presently subject to indigenous prosecutorial authority because of their nonindigenous status. Congress has yet to pass key reforms in the Violence Against Women Act that would bolster tribes’ ability to prosecute these cases. In order to get away from violent situations, many victims are forced to leave their homes and communities, which is particularly troubling in the context of indigenous peoples. As one Tinglit woman expressed, “when I left, I didn’t just leave my family. I left my culture behind… I ran away from my traditions, from my songs, my dances, and my heritage.” C. Lands, resources and broken treaties 37. The conditions of disadvantage of indigenous peoples undoubtedly are not mere happenstance. Rather, they stem from the well-documented history of the taking of vast expanses of indigenous lands with abundant resources, along with active suppression of indigenous peoples’ culture and political institutions, entrenched patterns of discrimination against them and outright brutality, all of which figured in the history of the settlement of the country and the building of its economy. 38. Many Indian nations conveyed land to the United States or its colonial predecessors by treaty, but almost invariably under coercion following warfare or threat thereof, and in exchange usually for little more than promises of government assistance and protection that usually proved illusory or worse. In other cases, lands were simply taken by force or fraud. In many instances treaty provisions that guaranteed reserved rights to tribes over lands or resources were broken by the United States, under pressure to acquire land for nonindigenous interests. It is a testament to the goodwill of Indian nations that they have uniformly insisted on observance of the treaties, even regarding them as sacred compacts, rather than challenge their terms as inequitable. 39. In nearly all cases the loss of land meant the substantial or complete undermining of indigenous peoples’ own economic foundations and means of subsistence, as well as cultural loss, given the centrality of land to cultural and related social patterns. Especially devastating instances of such loss involve the forced removal of indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, as happened for example, with the Choctaw, Cherokee and other indigenous people who were removed from their homes in the south-eastern United States to the Oklahoma territory in a trek through what has been called a “trail of tears,” in which many of them perished. 40. Another emblematic case involves the Black Hills in South Dakota, part of the ancestral territory of the Lakota people that, under the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, was reserved to the Lakota and other tribes known collectively as the Sioux Nation. Following the discovery of gold in the area, in 1877 Congress passed an act reversing its promise under the treaty and vesting ownership of the Black Hills to the Government. The Lakota and other Sioux tribes have refused to accept payment required in accordance with a 1980 Supreme Court decision and continue to request the return of the Black Hills; this is despite the fact that the people of these tribes are now scattered on several reservations and are some of the poorest among any group in the country. Today, the Black Hills are national forest and park lands, although they still hold a central place in the history, culture, and worldviews of surrounding tribes and at the same time serve as a constant visible reminder of their loss. Consequences of Violence Against Women, Nov. 2000, p. 22 & 60; https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf. 11