The epidemic of missing & murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) in the United States is a severe and urgent crisis that has gone largely ignored for centuries. While Indigenous women and girls make up just 2% of the U.S. population, they make up 20% of all missing person’s cases nationwide.

This episode provides a brief summary of the history of MMIW and the legacy of colonization, racial discrimination, and jurisdiction issues between federal, state, and tribal governments. We also cover the lack of national data collection on MMIW cases which makes it difficult to grasp the full scale of the epidemic. 

Sources:

“Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples,” Andrea Smith

The Guardian

nativehope.org

Bono, Martha, "Historicizing Sexual Violence Against Native American Women: Colonization, Intracommunal Shifts, and Creative Forms of Discourse" (2019).

Murder in Big Horn Documentary 

niwrc.org/policy-center/mmiwr

niwrc.org/policy-center/fvpsa

niwrc.org/policy-center/safe-housing

bia.gov

ncai.org

sovereign-bodies.org/mmiw-database

time.com

wcsap.orgs