Awareness Of Native American Missing And Murdered Rates Has Increased, Sparking State And Federal Action

By Lauren Gilger, Steve Goldstein
Published: Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 12:14pm
Updated: Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 12:23pm
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The movement to document murdered and missing indigenous women and girls has gained national attention in the last several years as awareness has risen that Native American women experience violence at much higher rates than others, and that thousands of them have been murdered or simply gone missing without account.

Last year, the United States Department of Justice declared May 5 a National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. In Canada, the government launched a national inquiry into the problem. Now, the Arizona legislature passed a bill that will create a study committee to examine these cases in the state.

Annita Lucchesi is the executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute, and her work to document the thousands of cases of indigenous women who have gone missing or have been murdered since 1900 has established a body of research behind the movement.  

She was a guest on The Show last year, and she came on again to talk about how much progress has been made.

Along those lines, a new study from the Murder Accountability Project shows that half of all Native American deaths in the U.S. go unreported to the FBI. In Arizona, it’s only about one in three.

Jerod Macdonald-Evoy of the Arizona Mirror has covered the issue and joined The Show to talk more about it.

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