Awareness grows for missing, murdered Indigenous women

Amber Kanazbah Crotty, a Navajo Nation Council Delegate, recalls how just a few years ago, law enforcement agencies didn’t want to talk about the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.

“Up to about 2018, we still had law enforcement telling us this was not an issue, that it’s not a prevalent issue,” she said.

In 2018, she testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs during a hearing called “Missing and Murdered: Confronting the Silent Crisis in Indian country.”

“I remember being there and watching our FBI partners walk out of the room before we gave our testimony,” Crotty said. “That sticks with me as an advocate, as a mom, as a council delegate, in terms of how we need to protect one another.”

Crotty said that it wasn’t until Indigenous people started organizing, talking with families and sharing more stories about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls that this crisis began to gain awareness.

The U.S. Senate signed a resolution on April 29 that designated May 5 as “National Day of Awareness for Missing

and Murdered Native Women and

Girls.”

The resolution was sponsored by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, who first introduced it in 2017.

The resolution was a response to the disappearance and death of Hanna Harris, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

Her family reported her missing in Lame Deer, Montana, on July 5, 2013, and her body was found five days later.

“Hanna Harris was determined to have been raped and murdered, and the individuals accused of committing those crimes were convicted,” the resolution states. “The case of Hanna Harris is an example of many similar cases.”

Hanna Harris was born on May 5, 1992, so the Senate designated May 5 to draw awareness to the issue.

The resolution calls for people to honor the lives of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women whose cases are documented in public records and the media — or remain undocumented — and to demonstrate solidarity with the families of victims.

Higher murder rates

In some tribal communities, Native American women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average, according to the Department of Justice.

Some 46% of all Native American women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, and one in three will, at some point in their life, experience the violence and trauma of rape.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2017 that homicide is the fourth-leading cause of death among Native American women between the ages of 1 and 19 years and the sixth-leading cause of death for ages 20 to 44.

President Joe Biden also signed a proclamation for May 5, declaring it “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day.”

“I call on all Americans and ask all levels of government to support Tribal governments and Tribal communities’ efforts to increase awareness of the issue of missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives through appropriate programs and activities,” Biden said in the proclamation.

“On Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember the Indigenous people who we have lost to murder and those who remain missing and commit to working with Tribal Nations to ensure any instance of a missing or murdered person is met with swift and effective action,” he said.

“My Administration is fully committed to working with Tribal Nations to address the disproportionately high number of missing or murdered Indigenous people, as well as increasing coordination to investigate and resolve these cases and ensure accountability,” he added.

Events, vigils mark awareness day

Since the inception of the national day of awareness, many state, tribal, and national initiatives have held events to increase awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.

On the Navajo Nation, several organizations came together Wednesday to host an event, with a walk starting from the Navajo Nation Council Chambers in Window Rock to the Tsehootsooi Middle School in Fort Defiance. The event was to end with a candlelight vigil.

“It’s a space for (Navajo families) to come together and honor their relatives and bring awareness,” said Crotty, the council member. They were also going to bring awareness to the case of Laverda “Verge” Guy Sorrel, who has been missing from the Window Rock area since 2002.

Crotty said the family will be putting up a billboard near Gallup, New Mexico, to bring awareness to the case and other MMIP.

“I think families are just looking for answers, and someone out there knows what happened,” Crotty said.

Crotty is part of Missing and Murdered Diné Relatives, a group that addresses this crisis on the Navajo Nation.

It’s a volunteer-based collective working to establish a data institute that tracks missing and murdered cases in the Navajo Nation.

“According to the national database, there’s about 41 missing Navajos right now,” Crotty said. But using their community-based approach, they count 63.

“That includes other individuals who haven’t been identified yet from our federal partners,” she added.

Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis and Lt. Gov. Monica Antone signed a proclamation this week that declared May 5, 2021, and each May 5 thereafter as Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Awareness Day within the Gila River Indian Community.

“This is an important proclamation. Every member of our community deserves to feel safe within our community, in their home (and) wherever they are in this world,” Lewis said in a video posted on the Gila River Indian Community’s

Facebook page. “The rates of violence against Native Americans is epidemic. We must continue to work at every level to keep our community safe.

“On May 5, I hope you all join me in prayer and remembrance for our members who have been subject to violence, who’ve been murdered and who have never come home,” Lewis added.

In Arizona, Rep. Jennifer Jermaine, D-Chandler, said this would be the third year an event was hosted at the state Capitol in honor of MMIP. It was to be a hybrid event allowing individuals to participate virtually or in person.

The event was to kick off with a virtual workshop on Wednesday afternoon, where four presenters were to discuss a report released by the Arizona MMIWG study committee in 2020. There also was to be a vigil at the Capitol to remember and honor survivors and families.

Increasing attention in Arizona

Arizona has the third-highest number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in the country, according to a 2017 study from the Urban Indian Health Institute.

The study recorded a total of 506 known cases in 71 urban cities across the country. Fifty-four cases exist in Arizona, 31 of those in Tucson.

In 2019, a study committee on MMIWG was established to study the scope of the issue within Arizona.

This included hosting multiple sessions across the state that allowed Indigenous people to share their stories.

In all, 153 families reached out to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Task Force to share their stories as survivors or about family members who have either gone missing or who have been murdered, Jermaine said.

Another 89 families also came forward to share stories about Native men and boys who have been affected.

The study committee released its full report in November 2020, and it highlighted three major programs in Arizona involving MMIWG.

First, no data exists on the issue in any current law enforcement database.

Second, Arizona lacks standards for collaborating across jurisdictions to locate missing adults.

Third, victims did not have access to the Arizona Victim’s Compensation Fund because law enforcement agencies have not consistently taken police reports on missing adults.

Jermaine said there are two bills currently moving through the Arizona House that involve MMIP.

One would require the mandatory reporting of all missing children to the federal database, and the other would expand the study committee for a few more years and also expand the scope to include men and boys.

“When we did the field study for the first report, we had 89 families come forward that we couldn’t talk to because their loved one was male,” Jermaine said, explaining the expansion of the study committee.

“We had 89 families that were outside of our scope, so going back to the Legislature, I think we need to expand our scope because we found this anomaly,” she added.

Hosting an event focused on MMIP, Jermaine said, raises awareness about the issue because “for centuries this has been kind of not spoken about and it’s been quietly happening in the background and really affecting Native families.”

She hopes that these types of events will help more people realize that this is a real problem and is happening on and off tribal lands.

“I hear more people having conversations and really looking at ways they can become more involved or more informed,” Debbie Nez-Manuel said.

She is part of the study committee and an advocate for MMIWG for many years.

“To me, that’s reassuring, especially when I say five years ago, we weren’t really having this conversation,” she added. “It wasn’t happening every day. Now I see it happening nearly every day.”

On a national level, the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) hosted a week of events leading up to May 5 to “call the nation and the world to action in honor of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls,” the center’s website states.

NIWRC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children, according to its website.

As part of its events, NIWRC put a call out on Twitter asking everyone to wear red on May 5 in honor of MMIWG and to take a picture holding their “No More Stolen Sisters” poster and share it on social media with the hashtag #MMIWGActionNow.