The Forgotten Women
Article by Presley Frank | Art by Mallika Sunder
Did you know Indigenous women and girls are ten times more likely to be murdered than any other ethnicity? The issue of Missing and Murdered Native American women is an ongoing crisis that goes severely unnoticed in the media and press. Native American women are being kidnapped, abused, sexually assaulted, and murdered at alarmingly high rates. The collection of data and reporting on this issue has become extremely difficult due to the amount of misinformation and lack of consistent and current data reporting. It is vital to the lives of Indigenous women that we make this crisis a priority.
The crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women is not new. Cases of murdered Indigenous women started to appear in 1980 and innocent lives are still being taken today. The lack of reporting and inaction on this issue has resulted in devastation across Indigenous communities. Why isn’t this more widespread in the media? Because of poor reporting and failure to serve justice to the many women who continue to lose their lives to this unique kind of corruption. As of 2016, 5,712 reports of missing Indigenous women have been filed, while only 116 of those were logged as missing persons cases. While it is concerning the amount of women whose lives have been stolen, the consistent ignorance of this issue in our media and news is shameful.
Our lack of awareness on missing and murdered Indigenous women stems from poor communication, racial misclassifications (wrongly identified one’s race), under-reporting, blatant racism in our media and law institutions, and the lack of relationships between law enforcement, reporters, journalists and Native American communities. Due to these unfortunate set-backs, and the fact that the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women is most likely much higher because of misreporting, investigating this issue has become a massive challenge. Another important factor to consider is that, “The majority of these murders are committed by non-Native people on Native-owned land.” as per Native Women’s Wilderness.
Not only is this an issue of murdered Native American women, it is also an issue of the domestic and sexual violence that they disproportionately experience. A quote by Lisa Brunner, an Indigenous human rights advocate, states, “Native American women are victims of violence far greater than any population in the country simply because of who we are as Native women, and what we represent, our tribal nations.” Unnerving statistics show just how heavily Indigenous women are targets of violence. According to the National Institute of Justice Report, “More than 4 out of 5 Indigenous Women have experienced violence (84.3%)” while more than half of Indigenous women experience sexual violence or have been abused by a romantic partner.
Allowing this crisis to continue unreported and unnoticed is not only an injustice to Indigenous women, but to all women. The Missing and Murdered Native American women is an urgent crisis that needs to be addressed in the news, media and press. It should be amplified in all of our lives as a crisis that must be discussed heavily. Awareness can make way for change, and failure to broadcast and begin investigating these cases is a failure to our society as a whole, specifically to Indigenous women, who live in fear of domestic abuse, sexual violence and murder. I urge you to take action in your everyday life by understanding the importance of highlighting this crisis, talking about it, and doing your part to help Indigenous women in need.
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