The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act of 2003, prosecutors are no longer required toprove that the offender traveled to a foreign country with the intent of having sex with a minor.Prosecutors only need to show that the offender in fact traveled to a foreign country and engagedin sexual conduct with a minor.E. Child Exploitation in Indian CountryChild sexual abuse crime rates in Indian Country 72 are high according to anecdotal Assistant U.S.Attorney (AUSA) information, and child sexual assault cases comprise the overwhelmingmajority of child exploitation cases on tribal lands. Several AUSAs who prosecute crimes onIndian Country report prosecuting more sex crimes than physical assaults involving AmericanIndian child victims. Most cases do not involve the use of computers or the Internet.Prosecutors report their belief that the rate of child sexual abuse is higher in Indian Country thanin the general U.S. population, but there is a dearth of reliable data regarding physical and sexualabuse—among children and adults—in Indian Country. Because no formal system currently is inplace that provides for coordination in the collection and reporting of crime and justice data bythe various federal, state, local, and tribal agencies responsible for law enforcement in IndianCountry, the rates of specific violent crime categories are not available. Data that do exist—theNational Institute of Justice (NIJ) reports that 34.1 percent of American Indian women are rapedin their lifetimes as compared to 18.2 percent of all U.S. women—show that the rate of sexualabuse is higher among American Indian women than all U.S. women. Further, according toavailable data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), American Indians experience percapita rates of violence that are more than twice those of the U.S. resident population. Rates ofviolence in every age group and for both males and females are higher among American Indiansthan among all other races.Law enforcement officers and prosecutors often encounter unique obstacles when investigatingand prosecuting child sexual abuse cases in Indian Country including the following:• The remoteness of some reservations, compounded by extremely poor travelingconditions in inclement weather, may contribute to multiday delays for FBI personneltravelling to crime scenes to begin investigations and interviewing witnesses. Somevictims and witnesses must travel more than 500 miles to attend federal courtproceedings. Further, some areas lack roads, legal street addresses, and telephones.• Many reservations have fairly small populations—sometimes numbering 100 or fewerresidents. Victims and families, in general, are reluctant to report crimes when assailantsare family members or people with status in their communities. In extremely smallcommunities, victims and families may be far less likely to report crimes committed bysomeone with a close relationship to the victim or, in Indian Country, by an elder,spiritual leader, or tribal council member.72 Indian Country is the legal term used to describe reservations and other lands set aside for Indian use, such asIndian allotments and lands held in trust for Indians or Indian tribes, according to 18 U.S.C. § 1151.38