A Call To Action
Organizing the 2022 National Week of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
In response to the family’s actions and demands for justice following the disappearance and murder of Hanna Harris at the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in 2013, the Montana Congressional Delegation led the work to pass the first Senate resolution declaring May 5th as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women (MMIW) in 2017.
Despite this declaration on May 5th, 2017, Native women continue to be murdered at alarming rates. In response, Native families and Indigenous communities across Indian country, Alaska, and Hawaii are calling for justice and reforms to dismantle the systemic barriers impacting the safety of Native women and to increase support for protections as defined by Indigenous voices, languages, and teachings. These Indigenous calls for justice and reforms date as far back as first contact by Western governments and are reflected in Indigenous acts of resistance and self-defense throughout history.
Nearly 46 million people worldwide heard the grassroots calls for justice during the National Week of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, April 29-May 5, 2021. Such an organized groundswell is an important factor in creating the political will to effect social changes that Indigenous women urgently need.
Turning our grief into action, we call upon congressional, state, local, and international policymakers to address the foundational reforms required to address MMIW beyond individual cases.
Join our united call to action and help grow the groundswell of our grassroots movement to hold all systems and sectors of our societies accountable!
The crisis of MMIW is the culmination of a spectrum of violence perpetrated disproportionately against Indigenous women—it reflects the intersection of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and many other crimes. These crimes occur due to a long history of government policies, programs, and laws that create conditions that leave Indigenous women more vulnerable to such crimes than other women.
We urge the United States, state, and local governments to reaffirm and support Indigenous protective systems as outlined by our national partner collective in our 6-Point Action Plan to Reform Current Systemic Barriers and Restore Safety of Indigenous Women.
The crisis of violence against Indigenous women and missing and murdered Indigenous women must continue to be brought into the public’s awareness to increase the accountability of social, political, economic, and government systems and responses. We call on the mainstream and local media to avoid harm and be culturally sensitive and transparent when building relationships with families impacted by MMIW. Indigenous women and girls deserve to have their humanity preserved when their stories are told in the media, and their families must be treated with the utmost respect and compassion. Missing and murdered Indigenous women and their families deserve justice.
A National Week of Action for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls provides a process for public healing and accountability for this crisis and honors those who have gone missing or been murdered. It is essential on the broadest level to acknowledge the historic and ongoing, current human suffering and death that global colonization has brought to Indigenous women. Violence against Indigenous women is preventable.
We call on all those concerned for the safety of Native women to organize at the local, Tribal, state, national, and international levels to support the 2022 National Week of Action culminating in a National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women on May 5, 2022. Systemic changes are needed across all systems and sectors of societies–including the public (governmental), private (business/corporations), nonprofit, educational, health care, and mainstream media sectors.
We must tell policymakers at the federal, state, local, and international levels and communities around the world that enough is enough. As Tillie Black Bear (Sicangu), grandmother of our movement for safety, said:
“I remember as a little girl laying on top of a slope as a sentry watching for agents to warn our parents and the elders doing ceremony. Our spirituality was made illegal, outlawed.”
The movement for the safety of Native women emerged in the 1970s as American Indian and Alaska Native sisters acted to help each other seek safety. The movement continues to develop as American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes and Native Hawaiians join together to resist violence perpetrated against women.
Join our united call to action and help grow the groundswell of our grassroots movement to hold all systems and sectors of our societies accountable!
Lucy Simpson (Diné), Executive Director, National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
Juana Majel-Dixon (Pauma-Yuima Band of Luiseno Mission Indians) & Shannon Holsey (Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians), Co-Chairs, National Congress of American Indians Task Force on Violence Against Women
Robert T. Coulter (Potawatomi), Executive Director, Indian Law Resource Center
Tami Truett Jerue (Anvik Tribe), Executive Director, Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center
Rosemond Keanuenue Pettigrew (Native Hawaiian), President, Board of Directors, Pouhana ‘O Nā Wahine
Dawn Stover (Cherokee), Executive Director, Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence
Lori Jump (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), Director, StrongHearts Native Helpline
