Jasmine Harden carries a sacred staff as part of a run to the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska, that took place in January 2018 to raise awareness about missing and murdered Native women. Photo by Kevin Abourezk

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House subcommittee schedules hearing on missing and murdered indigenous women

Friday, March 8, 2019

By Acee Agoyo

The House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States is holding its second hearing of the 116th Congress and the topic is a pressing one.

The March 14 proceeding will focus on missing and murdered indigenous women. The issue has been gaining in prominence on Capitol Hill and in state houses across the nation, with advocates seeking to address what has been called an overlooked crisis.

"We conducted the very first study on 71 cities across the United States and we found high instances of missing and murdered Native women," Abigail Echo-Hawk, the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, told key lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

"Our communities have been calling for a study like this to be done but the Department of Justice and the FBI said it couldn't be done, that it would take too much money," Echo-Hawk, who is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation, continued. "I did it with less than $20,000 -- again, self-funded out of our organization."

Urban Indigenous women & girls go missing/are murdered at extremely high rates, yet there is little data on the crisis. We started gathering the data and need your help to continue. Stand with us. #MMIWG #DecolonizeData #NotInvisible #NoMoreStolenSisters https://t.co/KpyN81CgxI pic.twitter.com/XI8ldlvnIr
— UIHI (@TheUIHI) November 14, 2018

The result was a landmark study which identified significant gaps in law enforcement. Even though there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls as of 2016, only 116 were logged into NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

"What I found was that I can't tell you the rate of missing and murdered indigenous women and that's because the police departments aren't collecting race and ethnicity" data, Echo-Hawk said in her testimony to the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, whose members write the bill that funds almost every Indian Country program.

Echo-Hawk wasn't the only one who brought up the issue. Ella Robertson, who is the second woman in the history of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate to lead the tribe, brought a visible reminder of the crisis to D.C. this week.

"I'm wearing red today in honor of Savanna Greywind and recognizing missing and murdered indigenous women across Indian Country, '" Robertson said in her testimony on Thursday as she called on Congress to fulfill its trust and treaty responsibility and fund public safety programs in tribal communities.

Greywind was a 22-year-old woman from the Spirit Lake Nation who was found murdered after she went missing in North Dakota in 2017. Like many of her sisters, she was victimized in an urban area, where few federal dollars reach organizations like the Urban Indian Health Institute even though most American Indians and Alaska Natives live in cities and metropolitan regions.

A bill named in Greywind's honor seeks to ensure law enforcement in all areas -- urban and in Indian Country -- take better steps to address missing and murdered Native Americans. S.227, also known as Savanna's Act. was introduced in January after failing to clear its final hurdle in the last session of Congress.

"Our Native women deserve protection everywhere," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the sponsor of Savanna's Act, told tribal leaders as they met for the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in D.C. last month.

The hearing before the House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples, which is part of the House Committee on Natural Resources, will take place at 10am on March 14 in Room 1324 of the Longworth House Office Building. A witness list hasn't been posted online.

As one of the first two Native women in Congress, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) has vowed to use her position to spotlight the cause. She serves on the House subcommittee.

"Native women have continued to endure generations of systematic violence," Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, told leaders of the United South and Eastern Tribes on Monday as they met in Washington for their Impact Week.

House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States Notice

Subcommittee Hearing: Unmasking the Hidden Crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW): Exploring Solutions to End the Cycle of Violence (March 14, 2019)

'Shameful': Inaction on #MMIW in Congress

Watch: Rep. Norma Torres (D-California) on Savanna's Act #MMIW MMIWG

A bill to address missing and murdered Native women on the national level failed at the end of the 115th session of Congress.

"Shameful" is how Rep. Norma Torres (D-California), a supporter of a bill known as Savanna's Act, said of the last-minute holdup.

Savanna's Act, named in honor of Savanna Marie Greywind, a 22-year-old woman from the Spirit Lake Nation who was found murdered after she went missing in North Dakota in 2017, passed the Senate but was blocked in the House by a Republican who no longer serves in office.