From the website: "More than half of American Indian and Alaska Native women will experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, according to the Department of Justice.

"You talk to Native women who have lived their whole lives on a reservation, and they say, 'I can't think of anyone, any woman that I know who hasn't been victimized in this way,'" said Deer, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma.

National data on sex crimes in tribal communities are scarce, so Newsy spent 18 months focused on two reservations: the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana and the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. After analyzing exclusively obtained documents and conducting dozens of interviews, a stark picture emerged.

Sexual assault investigations can fall through the cracks when tribes and the federal government fail to work together. Even for those few cases that end in a conviction in tribal court, federal law prevents most courts from sentencing perpetrators for more than a year.

Survivors who come forward to report assaults often find themselves trapped in small communities with their perpetrators, and several said the broken legal system contributed to their trauma."