Women's History Month: Bringing Awareness To The Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
Written by Tamara Rose
This Woman’s History Month I wanted to leave you with an uplifting story, one that could make us happy. Life is really hard for so many of us right now in so many ways. I wanted to spread joy. I looked, I searched for joyous inspiration. I found an illegal war funded by our tax dollars. I see genocides in Sudan, Congo, Palestine, Myanmar. I feel the racism, misogynoir, the trans-phobia, the lack of child protection, the constant need for some to control other human beings. Indigenous Women face a particular danger here in the US. What you are going to read should make you angry. Anger is a tool for change. We need to feel it and use it so we can make this world safe for everyone.
The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) in the United States is a profound human rights violation, rooted in centuries of colonization and perpetuated by modern systemic failures. Native American women face disproportionate and staggering rates of violence. This danger is not monolithic; it stems from the intersecting threats posed by individual men, systemic neglect by police forces, and the complex, restrictive legal frameworks imposed by the United States government. Understanding the multifaceted nature of this crisis is the first step toward dismantling it, and every citizen has a crucial role to play in advocating for justice, safety, and sovereignty for Indigenous women.
The most immediate physical threat to Native American women comes from individual men, both Native and non-Native, though statistics reveal a deeply disturbing trend regarding the latter. According to a landmark 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), more than four in five Native women, this includes Native Alaskan, (84.3 percent) have experienced violence in their lifetime. This includes staggering rates of sexual violence, physical violence by intimate partners, stalking, and psychological aggression. Even more chilling is the NIJ's finding that 97 percent of Native women who experience violence do so at the hands of non-Native perpetrators.
This epidemic of violence is exacerbated by several factors, including the geographic isolation of many reservations and the transient nature of "man camps" (temporary housing setups for workers in extractive industries like oil and gas near tribal lands) which have been heavily linked to spikes in human trafficking and sexual assault. Furthermore, there is a predatory awareness among many abusers that Native women are statistically less protected by the surrounding legal systems. Men who harbor violent intentions frequently exploit the legal loopholes that make prosecuting non-Natives on tribal lands incredibly difficult, effectively operating with a perceived sense of impunity.
When Native women survive violence or when they go missing, the institutions designed to protect them such as local, state, and sometimes federal police often fail them. The danger from law enforcement is characterized not only by instances of direct harm or bias but heavily by systemic apathy, chronic under-resourcing, and negligent data collection. The Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI) released a comprehensive report in 2018 detailing the catastrophic failure of law enforcement agencies to accurately track and investigate MMIW cases in urban centers, where over 70 percent of Native Americans reside. Police frequently misclassify Native victims as Hispanic, White, or other races, effectively erasing them from the data and stunting investigations before they even begin.
Furthermore, families of missing Indigenous women frequently report that police dismiss their initial cries for help, blaming the victim's disappearance on substance abuse or framing them as runaways rather than treating the situation as a potential crime. This institutional apathy delays critical search windows, compromises physical evidence, and signals to perpetrators that the justice system does not value Native lives, thereby emboldening future violence against these communities.
The failures of local and state police are inextricably linked to the broader dangers posed by the United States government. The federal government has constructed a labyrinthine legal system that inherently disadvantages Native women and strips tribal nations of their sovereign right to protect their own people. A primary driver of this danger was the 1978 Supreme Court decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, which stripped tribal courts of the criminal jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on reservations.
While the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorizations in 2013 and 2022 restored some tribal jurisdiction over non-Native offenders for specific crimes like domestic violence and sexual assault, the system remains a patchwork of confusing authority. When a violent crime occurs on tribal land, jurisdictional authority can fall to the tribe, the state, or the federal government (via the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs) depending on the race of the victim, the race of the perpetrator, and the specific location of the crime. This "jurisdictional maze" often results in federal agencies declining to prosecute cases, leaving victims with no legal recourse. Furthermore, the U.S. government has historically underfunded tribal justice systems, leaving tribal law enforcement stretched incredibly thin. This systemic neglect is a modern continuation of historical colonial violence, where the devaluation of Indigenous life was institutionalized.
While the scale of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women crisis is daunting, citizens have significant power to exact change and support Native American women. The most vital action non-Native citizens can take is to listen to, amplify, and fund Indigenous voices and organizations that have been doing this work for decades. Organizations such as the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center (NIWRC), the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW), and the UIHI rely on public support and donations to fund their advocacy, victim services, and data tracking.
Citizens can also act as powerful political advocates. This means contacting local, state, and federal representatives to demand full funding and implementation of protective legislation, such as Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act, which aim to improve data collection, cross-jurisdictional coordination, and federal responses to the MMIW crisis. Citizens must also demand that lawmakers continue to expand tribal jurisdictional authority, allowing tribes to fully prosecute any person who commits a violent crime on their land.
Native American women face a compounding crisis of violence that begins with the predatory actions of individuals, is facilitated by the apathy and incompetence of law enforcement, and is shielded by the complex, oppressive legal architectures maintained by the U.S. government. Ending this epidemic requires a dismantling of the systemic inequities that leave Indigenous women vulnerable. By supporting Indigenous-led organizations, pushing for legislative reform, and refusing to allow these women to be forgotten, we all can help build a society where Native women are protected, respected, and safe.
Written by Tamara Rose
Sources:
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/violence-against-american-indian-and-alaska-native-women-and-men
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S.191. Supreme Court of the United States. (1978)
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep435/usrep435191/usrep435191.pdf
National Indigenous Women's Resource Center (NIWRC).
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