"Why Do We Have to be Almost Dead to Qualify for Help?": Criminal Legal and Protection System Responses to Intimate...

Analyzing 30 one-on-one qualitative interviews with Indigenous women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV), this article provides a critical examination of responses to IPV by criminal legal and related systems of intervention, such as child and family services. More specifically, the article analyzes the voiced experiences of Indigenous women who sought support from systems designed to address IPV and gendered and sexualized violence. Grounded in Indigenous feminist thought and theories of settler colonial gendered violence, the study reveals that in the context of ongoing settler colonial gendered violence, Indigenous women survivors of IPV victimization in Canada were overwhelmingly met with revictimization and violence by the systems tasked with anti-violence intervention. The article considers decolonial approaches to responding to IPV against Indigenous women that foreground the strength and sovereignty of Indigenous women.