Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls #MMIWG
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is a serious crisis within the United States. Organizing efforts, from the grassroots to national level, have brought this issue into the public’s eye. As social justice actions continue to increase across Indian tribes and communities, lawmakers and government departments are being educated and held accountable to make the changes needed.
Governmental Responses to Calls for Justice and Change
The increased attention to the issue of MMIW is long overdue. In the first five months of 2019, three bills were introduced in the Senate with companion bills in the House, and hearings on MMIW in both the Senate and House. The changes contained in these bills are needed and will bring attention to the injustices of MMIW. They are critical first steps to fully understanding the injustices and defining solutions.
As affirmed in the 2009 Apology to Native Peoples1, the U.S. recognized that there have been years of official depredations, ill conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes; and apologized for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples. The release in 2018 of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Broken Promises Report 2 also continues to affirm the need for the government to fulfill their trust responsibility with appropriate allocation of resources. The crisis of MMIW is reflective of this history and ongoing failure of the United States to protect Native women. This crisis is in part what the U.S. apologized for; the lack of resources for tribes to provide justice and victim services; and, the failure of local, state and federal responses to these crimes.
The NIWRC is working in partnership with the NCAI Task Force to educate Congress to strengthen tribal authority to respond to these crimes and ensure availability of resources to support such increased tribal responses. Efforts at all levels of tribal, state and the federal government are required to begin making the changes needed. The following state and Congressional legislative actions are highlights of such change.
National Responses: In 2019, Congress introduced three bills in both the Senate and House to recognize, study, and increase the coordination and response of law enforcement agencies to the MMIWG crisis.
