Lakota Peoples Law Project Expects NPR Series to Reveal Destructive Cycle of Indian Child Welfare Act

The Lakota Peoples Law Project is working to protect and restore families, society and community health using legal, educational, and organizational initiatives including the Lakota Child Rescue Project. Based on interviews and discussions, the Lakota Peoples Law Project is expecting Laura Sullivan’s award-winning investigative reporting to make some astonishing revelations in her series on the South Dakota Lakota Sioux on NPR October 25 and 26 on All Things Considered and October 27 on Morning Edition.

Lakota Sioux woman looks out window hoping for her children.

Rachel Hopes for Her Lost Children

In South Dakota, one of the worst offenders nationwide, nearly two-thirds of children in state foster care are Native American. By age 20, over 60% of these children are dead, homeless, or in prison.

Santa Cruz, CA (PRWEB) October 21, 2011

The Lakota Peoples Law Project is working to return children to their communities by developing Native services and reforming the Indian Child Welfare Act.

According to NPR Laura Sullivan is known for her investigative reporting on the plight of the country’s most disadvantaged people. NPR also lists Ms. Sullivan's 2007 revelation of the widespread rape of Native American women on their reservations, committed largely by non-Native men. This tragic story took place, and continues to take place, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas.

The Lakota Peoples Law Project (LPLP) has documented the theft and destruction of Indian children. Native children are being taken at an alarming rate. LPLP investigators and attorneys have found that the South Dakota Department of Social Services in a misguided attempt to help the children removes them from their families and places them in non-Indian households, foster-care settings, and state institutions for years. These children often experience sexual and emotional abuse, medical over-drugging, and inadequate education. According to LPLP lead attorney Daniel P. Sheehan, the current system is a failure. Mr. Sheehan's research shows that South Dakota, is one of the worst offenders nationwide. Nearly two-thirds of children in state foster care in South Dakota are Native American. By age twenty, over 60% of these children are dead, homeless, or in prison.

Since 2005 The Lakota People’s Law Project has been partnering with the Native American tribes of South Dakota. Through law, public policy, research, and education The Lakota Peoples Law Project is challenging the systemic injustices of the last 150 years and working for the renewal of Lakota culture and society

The Lakota Peoples Law Project is sponsored by the nonprofit Romero Institute of Santa Cruz, CA. The Romero Institute, named after slain human rights advocate, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, seeks to identify and disassemble structural sources of injustice and threats to the survival of our human family.

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