Healing and Accountability for Families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples in Arizona and Nationwide
Who I Am
I am Valaura Imus-Nahsonhoya, and I am thankful for what I have learned and continued to carry from all of the mothers in this movement to restore Tribal sovereignty and increase Native women’s and Indigenous peoples’ safety. My experiences all these years have guided me and given me the opportunities, resources, trust, and belief in myself to move forward in this work. This is where my passion comes from and what I share daily.
My advocacy begins in grassroots, for-profit, nonprofit, Tribal, state, and federal organizations. The lack of adequate resources for adult missing persons led to the creation of a community-based Missing Person & Trafficking Recovery Program. Our success in finding missing persons, recovering remains, and trafficking survivors out of the life is rewarding. The most rewarding is guiding and providing the resources and tools to families of missing loved ones, educating and guiding community advocates to search for loved ones with a trauma-informed lens.
Since April 2023, I have been appointed by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs as the first-ever Coordinator for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) Task Force for the State of Arizona in Tribal Affairs. My appointment is supported by the governor’s executive order creating the Task Force and charges. We focus on putting into action the state’s previous MMIP work since 2016, including studies around MMIP and the release of 83 recommendations.
What Have We Done
Governor Hobbs is very compassionate on this issue. I’m very fortunate that my director and the governor gave me free rein to build this position. Constant communication is required to ensure I am on the right path and aligned with the governor’s vision.
Amendments were made to our Victim Compensation Program to ensure we removed barriers around eligibility, including adult cases of missing persons who don’t have official law enforcement reports. State law requires that victims or their families report crimes within certain days. They are not eligible for victim compensation if they don’t report a missing person within that period. The amendments address opportunities for families to apply for reimbursable compensation through the state of Arizona.
The community and our families haven’t seen the actions they deserve. The goal is to ensure that we address our challenges, successes, and recommendations as the MMIP Coordinator and the Task Force. We have accomplished the following:
- We recognized that our municipal law enforcement departments were not identifying suspects or victims as Native American. We changed that.
- We shared our concerns and questions to help strengthen the coordination of the Medical Examiner’s (ME) office with the 22 Tribes in Arizona when they have remains that could be Native American. As a result, we’ve had an increase in the number of remains returned to families. Some of our loved ones have gone home and had proper burials.
These stories empower my work.
Our governor met with our Tribes. This is the first time a governor has visited Tribes and sincerely participated in meetings, not just meetings with her agenda but meetings with the Tribe’s agenda. We have a respectful relationship with our Tribes as collaborative partners, letting them lead conversations rather than the state. Our Task Force is planning a Tribal leader engagement in the near future.
Organizing MMIP Coordinators
The key to effecting social change and responding to and preventing MMIP is that we host quarterly national virtual meetings with state and federal MMIP coordinators. We can amplify our voices to make change happen locally and nationally. We’ve had three meetings since December 2023.
Most of the coordinators are Native. Some are new to this work, and others have been doing it for some time from different disciplines, with over half of them in the infancy stages of their work. Some come from grassroots, non-profit organizations and have been boots on the ground. Some don’t have experience working or living in Indian Country. Some have college degrees and vast experiences in this field. We all have much to learn from each other. We’ve talked about our challenges and barriers and shared attempted solutions. We have supported each other and see the value of our networking.
We’re dealing with the effects of missing or murdered loved ones, sometimes with no judicial accountability. We’re dedicated to helping secure the healing of the families of MMIP and the community. While implementing and acting on recommendations is essential and long overdue, we must ensure that our people are healing with the support of actual resources. We must learn from and hear their testimony. They must be leading actions for change with all of us.
We want to develop a collaborative platform to empower all to do this work. We’re coming together nationally in person on October 16 and 17 for the first time and expect participation from the Pacific, Montana, the Great Lakes, Alaska, and the Southwest coordinators. Many of the coordinators shared that it’s hard to sit and listen virtually. We’re visual learners as Native Americans. We need to have these conversations in person.
We want to learn and share barriers, such as accessing victim assistance and whether law enforcement has responded or determined a crime has been committed. Acknowledge our accomplishments. What are we experiencing that may be the same? What solutions are we thinking about or implementing?
We know the people in the community addressing MMIP in Indian Country. We know someone knows something of a loved one missing or murdered. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a hurtful lesson. We must be careful of and identify how to protect against the exploitation of families, including fundraising to help with finding MMIP.
The gathering will be action-oriented. We will provide a strategic process for sharing, monitoring, and evaluating our practices to produce a comprehensive summary, maybe a plan, and recommendations.
I’m excited and honored to be part of organizing the MMIP coordinators and the event. It’s the right time. We must take action and avoid isolation, which can be very easy with this work.
