Missing and murdered indigenous women of the U.S.A.

Violence against indigenous women in the U.S.A. 

Indigenous women targeted

Indigenous women are more then twice as likely to be victims of violence then non-indigenous women. One in three indigenous women are raped or attempted to have been in their lifetime nearly 80% of these crimes are committed by non-native men. Another study found 97% of native victims have been abused by someone non-native the women are often victims of physical violence. On some reserves native women are murdered at 10 times the national average. These numbers are profoundly high and this is making a big hole in the already small population of native people. Something needs to change for these women with statistics such as these it would be difficult for them not to live in fear. The U.S.A. is facing this problem and so is Canada the epidemic has been going on for years and more drastic measures need to be taken to help. A big reason there is a disproportionate rate of assault to indigenous women is that tribes don't have the legal ability to prosecute non tribal members.

Missing information 

To often cases of missing and murdered indigenous women have not had forensic evidence accurately  collected or preserved by local law enforcement  cases have quickly gone cold and important evidence has been lost or never forwarded to the appropriate agency's. From 1992-1996 although more indigenous women were being targets of assault they were less likely to be reported. This caused incorrect data that groups have tried to bring the correct statistics to so they can raise awareness about unreported cases. Being unreported attackers go unpunished and this makes indigenous women targets for people to likely get away with the crimes. It is as if people have lost hope and are not trying to stop this problem. The victims feel their voice will not be taken in as an important enough occurrence to have serious  measures taken to solve the crimes. Having so many people feeling this way is unbelievably tragic.

Serious issues 

The federal government has no national database for missing and murdered indigenous women like Canada does being a national crisis this shouldn't be the case. This gives tribes no place to report these types of crimes and no place to get information about them. The National crime Information center had a number of 5712 missing native women this was thought to have been low and of these the FBI only put 116 into the department of justices federal missing persons data base where law enforcement agencies can exchange information. The Federal Bureau of Investigation took 116 people out of 5712 that isn't right. The 2015 tribal access program was to grant tribes access to the National Crime Information Center but only 47 out of 573 tribes in the united states have participated as of 2019 and the cost of updating computers is high this means many crimes go unreported and tribal investigators have limited ability to pull up information on suspects so many cases go uninvestigated and unsolved. The U.S. crime victims fund is supposed to pay for preventative and support services tribes have to fight for their share relying on states to disperse the money. A department of Justice report released in 2017 said that from 2010-2014 the sates governments passed only 0.5% of funds to support tribal victims. Tribes with access to the national crime information center often don't enter records its believed to be because of lack of staff and because native women do not try to file. It is considered easier to get away with crimes on reservations due to lack of policing and tribal jurisdiction. Tribes are not able to punish non native tribal members on their lands so Tribal State and Federal jurisdiction is split. It can be difficult to determine who leads the investigation in crimes. The Department of Justice has only pursued prosecution in about half of murder cases and just over a third of sexual assault cases, and the department has declined more then one third of cases referred to them by reservation authorities. Why this is the case is beyond me but its horribly wrong that the department of justice would decline peoples crime cases.

Action and setbacks

Donald trump created a white house task force on violence against indigenous women its job to develop protocols to apply to new and unsolved cases and create a multi jurisdictional team to review cold cases. Tulalip tribes were prohibited under federal law from prosecuting or arresting non native perpetrators and the US attorneys who had jurisdiction declined most cases. In 2013 Deborah Parker a board member of the National Indigenous women resource center went to Washington DC spoke with lawmakers and helped pass legislation that finally meant non native abusers would face consequences on her reservation and across the US. Iowa senator Joni Ernst introduced senate republicans version of the violence against women act re-authorization bill the legislation includes provisions, the crisis of missing a murdered indigenous women it goes against gains made in 2013 it would give non native abusers that don't wan to comply with tribal law the ability to skip the tribal court process and appeal to federal court and allow abusers to sue if they feel their civil right have been violated. Another bill restores tribal jurisdiction over non native perpetrators for the crimes of sexual assault, rape, sex trafficking and some instances of child abuse.

Many issues surround this topic and much needs to be done to stop this crisis.