Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
May 6, 2022
This week marked the annual National Week of Action for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.
Across our nation, a disproportionate number of Native women and girls go missing or are murdered. In South Dakota alone, 68% of missing persons are Native Americans despite making up only 9% of the state population. Of the 106 persons on South Dakota’s Missing Persons List, 30% are Native women. Even more troubling, American Indian women in some tribal communities face murder rates that are ten times higher than the national average. Many of these cases go unsolved due to a lack of resources, underreporting, poor data collection, and jurisdictional difficulties between tribal, local, and state police.
This week, I cosponsored a bill that designates May 5th as “National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.” Bringing awareness to this tragic issue is fundamental in securing additional funding and resources to not only help find those who are missing, but to prevent more murders and kidnappings in the future.
Thankfully, some progress has been made. In 2020, Savanna’s Act was signed into law, which requires the Department of Justice to assess and develop law enforcement and justice protocols to address cases involving missing or murdered Native people. I was proud to be a lead cosponsor of this bill. In the same year, the Not Invisible Act became law, increasing intergovernmental coordination to identify and combat violent crime against Indians and on Indian lands.
Every life is precious. Every missing person should have the same chance of being found, but unfortunately that is not the case when it comes to our native neighbors. While we have been moving in the right direction, there is more work to be done to address this nationwide crisis.
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