The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women

ALAMOSA – “You’re going to hear this statistic a lot today, but I really want you to hear it because it’s important. There were 5,712 Native American or Alaskan Native women who went missing or were murdered from 2016 until today. 5,712. That’s more than the population of a lot of cities here in the San Luis Valley.”

Those were a portion of the opening comments by Ruth Horn, executive director of the San Luis Valley Area Health Education Council (SLV AHEC), in a program held on the Adams State University campus on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

Horn was addressing a group of advocates, including Adam State University Interim President David Tandberg, Alamosa County Commissioner Lori Laske, members of ASU’s Native American Students Success and Achievement (NASSA), people of Indigenous heritage and concerned members of the community, who had just marched from the intersection of Main and Highway 285 to Niellsen Library on the ASU campus.

Their goal — to bring to public awareness the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women whose disappearance or deaths have largely gone unnoticed by mainstream media, untracked by data centers, under-investigated by local law enforcement and unsolved.

Frequency of violence is unparalleled

The pervasiveness and frequency of violence against American Indian and Alaskan Native women is staggering. According to a 2016 report by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Native American and Alaskan Native rates of murder, rape, and violent crime are all higher than the national averages.

Also included in the BIA report was data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that states the murder rate is 10 times higher than the national average for women living on reservations with murder ranking third among the leading cause of death for Native women. Additionally, this group are significantly more likely to experience a rape in their lifetimes, with four out of five Native American and Alaskan Native women having experienced some form of violence in their lives.

“Community advocates describe the crisis as a legacy of generations of government policies of forced removal, land seizures and violence inflicted on Native peoples,” the BIA report reads.

But before Horn even made her opening comments, the disturbing reality that prompted the protest was symbolized throughout the crowd in the form of blood-red hands painted on protest signs, the front of t-shirts or painted across the mouths of some of the women, including Horn.

The event was sponsored by the SLV American Indian Center in conjunction with ASU’s NASSA organization, including members Gabrielle Vigil, a Jicarilla Apache, single mom of two and sophomore at ASU pursuing a degree in forensics, and Nizhoni Begay, a member of the Navajo Nation who is also part Chiricahua Apache and an ASU senior pursing her degree in agriculture and education.

Nizhoni was the first speaker to address the crowd, and she began with a comparison of two cases. Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman, was reported missing in August of 2022, capturing the immediate attention of the media. An outpouring of almost nightly coverage and collaboration between the FBI and local law enforcement led to her case being solved in less than two months.

In June of 2018, a 23-year-old Native American woman, Jermain Charlo, was reported missing in Missoula, Mont. There was no real media attention. The FBI did not become involved and due to the jurisdictional maze related to local law enforcement authority, her case was not investigated by local police for several years.

Although a former boyfriend was arrested on gun charges, almost five years after being reported missing, Charlo’s disappearance remains unsolved.

Nezhoni highlighted other data, including statistics that 96% of sexual assaults of indigenous woman are committed by non-native men. Of that 96%, only 32% are prosecuted.

The second featured speaker was Tori Martinez, published author, poet and CEO of Meztiza Consulting that focuses on rural leadership through diverse and equitable consulting services. Martinez led participants in an exercise related to other challenges having a disparate impact on indigenous communities including mental health issues and historical trauma.

Tuesday’s protest was one of other similar protests held in various parts of the United States and Canada for the purpose of raising public awareness concerning the violence — in all its forms — that Native American and Alaskan Native women have endured, often in silence, for far too long.

But, in Colorado, steps have recently been taken to address the ongoing national crisis.

Legislature and law enforcement step up

As of Dec. 30, 2022, Colorado became one of the first states to roll out an alert system for missing and murdered Indigenous people. Unlike Amber alerts that come up on cell phones, the alerts of missing and murdered Indigenous victims are sent to law enforcement agencies. Members of the public and the media may also request to receive the alerts, which contain the victim’s name, last location, a photo, which law enforcement agency should be contacted with information and any other pertinent information.

It is hoped that, by making the alerts available, the victims’ stories will garner headlines in local and state news and raise awareness like other missing and murdered cases, like Petito.

The alert system is part of a larger piece of legislation passed and signed into law in 2022 by Gov. Jared Polis that created the Office of Liaison for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR). The office was created to coordinate response to violence against Indigenous people and, as the bill states, will “serve as a liaison on behalf of the Indigenous community,” including working with a new advisory board. The board will include members from community organizations, Indigenous tribes, law enforcement and others.

The law goes further by requiring the MMIR and the Department of Public Safety to help with investigations, review cold cases and suspicious deaths, create partnerships with tribal communities, and develop policies for keeping and analyzing data about MMIR. The state also will create a data dashboard to track statistics about MMIR, help victims’ families, and more.

“We are very excited that this is a victory, that our community finally has a starting point with some real teeth in it to get started and do this work in earnest," Raven Payment, an advocate for indigenous communities who is Ojibwe and Mohawk, was quoted as saying in an interview with Colorado Public Radio.

“I consider myself a feminist,” Vigil says. “As an Indigenous woman, when it comes to missing and murdered Indigenous women, it’s wrong that no one is talking about it, and no one is reporting on it. I have to seek justice for all the unsolved cases for these women. I have to seek justice on their behalf.

“I’m also the single mother of two Indigenous bi-racial children. I worry about them, but I also do this to teach them the importance of speaking out against things they think are wrong,” she said.