An Epidemic of Violence: The MMIWG2S Crisis
- Aarush Santoshi
- Mar 10, 2022
- 5 min read
On March 27, 2014, Loreal Tsingine, a 27 year-old Navajo woman was fatally shot by a police officer in Winslow, Arizona. Austin Shipley, the white male police officer who killed her, was never charged and the Department of Justice refused to conduct an investigation of the Winslow Police Department. 25-year old Aubrey Dameron, a member of the Cherokee Nation, went missing from her home in Grove, Oklahoma on March 9, 2019; she is yet to be found. Two women almost 1,000 miles apart. Two different but connected stories.
What is the MMIWG2S Crisis?
In 2019 alone, 5,600 Native American women were reported missing according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As of 2016, the National Crime Information Center, which is the central database for crime-related information in the United States, has reported 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) women and girls; in the same time period, the US Department of Justice reported only 116 cases. According to Native Women’s Wilderness, this disparity points to a “lack of communication combined with jurisdictional issues between state, local, and tribal law enforcement.” This underreporting is also partly due to racial misclassification (oftentimes Native American women are reported as Latinx or White) and gender and racial biases. Collectively, these issues contribute to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit* (MMIWG2S) crisis.
On September 11, 2019 Charles Addington, the then-Deputy Bureau Director of the Office of Justice Services at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, addressed the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee for Indigenous People of the United States about the Trump Administration’s handling of the MMIWG2S crisis. In his speech, Addington discussed how “American Indians and Alaska Natives are two and a half times more likely to experience violent crimes and at least two times more likely to experience rape or sexual assault crimes in comparison to all other ethnicities.” He also mentioned how the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) helped to bring attention to crime in Native American territory, but ultimately data gaps caused by underreporting and racial misclassification, among other things, impact how law enforcement agencies address the murders and disappearances of AIAN (American Indian and Alaska Native) women.
Addington’s commentary barely scratched the surface of the extent of the MMIWG2S crisis. In 2012, the Department of Justice found that on some reservations, Native American women face murder rates up to 10 times the national average. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that homicide is the fifth leading cause of death among 25 to 34 year old AIAN women. The crisis has also had “profound psychological consequences'' according to the American Psychological Association (APA). Although research regarding MMIWG2S specifically is limited, the historical and generational trauma faced by Native Americans manifests itself as a “normalization of violence”, the APA explains; as a consequence, Native Americans experience disproportionately high rates of suicide, substance abuse, and depression. Tribal efforts to address mental health concerns are often squandered due to limited tribal sovereignty in the United States.
The United States has historically brutalized indigenous populations, engaging in a particularly vicious form of settler colonialism with genocidal proportions. Addressing the MMIWG2S crisis means confronting America’s legacy of mistreating Native Americans and decolonizing data collection and policing.
*The term two-spirit is a term used by some indigenous peoples to either describe those with both masculine and feminine features who fulfil a ‘third gender’ or to express their sexual and/or gender and/or spiritual identity.
Source: Teen Talk
The Federal Government’s Role
The MMIWG2S crisis is a nationwide epidemic of violence that is infrequently addressed by the media, and when it does happen to make a headline the extent of the problem is often minimized. So often ignored is the federal government’s complicity in not only the perpetuation of violence against AIAN women, girls, and two-spirit but also in the erasure of their stories.
First and foremost, it is important to recognize that while individual violence perpetrated against AIAN women, girls, and two-spirit is a substantial part of the problem, solving the crisis doesn’t just mean apprehending the perpetrators of said violent crime. As a collective, we must address the system that allows these crimes to go underreported, a system that has its foundation in federal colonial policy. A statement from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center argues that the legal foundation for violence against AIAN women is as a consequence of three federal statutes that took effect in the 19th and 20th centuries which function as the “cornerstones of current federal Indian law”: the General Crimes Act of 1817, which established federal jurisdiction over tribal members who committed crimes against non-tribal members; the Major Crimes Act of 1885, which established federal jurisdiction over seven major crimes (which was later expanded to sixteen major crimes) committed by tribal members against other tribal members or their property; and Public Law 280 (1953) which transferred federal authority to state governments. These policies, as well as others, served to strip Native Americans of their sovereignty. It wasn’t until Janet Reno, Attorney General under President Bill Clinton, made it clear that tribes retained the right to prosecute crimes like rape and sexual assult did Native American Nations begin to prosecute crimes of sexual violence after decades of being under the misconception that they couldn’t.
Recent legislative efforts have been made to address the MMIWG2S crisis, although the impacts of this legislation are in no way expansive or specific enough to produce a substantial and meaningful solution to the issue. A provision was added to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in its 2013 reauthorization to give jurisdiction to Native American tribes over non-tribal members who commit violent crimes against Native women living on tribal land; however, the provision limits sentencing to 3-year terms, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) expired on February 15, 2019 (it was originally set to be expired on December 7, 2018 but it was temporarily reauthorized through February 15, 2019; it has yet to be reauthorized again). The Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) was signed into law on July 29, 2010 by President Barack Obama and expanded the authority of tribal courts to prosecute criminals. One specific goal of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) was to address violence against AIAN women, girls, and two-spirit by encouraging more law enforcement presence on tribal lands and authorizing new guidelines for dealing with sexual and domestic violence. The most recent legislative victory for activists committed to ending the MMIWG2S crisis was Savannah's Act, which was written into law on October 10, 2020 with bipartisan support. The bill, sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), “directs the Department of Justice to review, revise, and develop law enforcement and justice protocols to address missing or murdered Native Americans.” (congress.gov). Specifically, it requires the DOJ to develop regional guidelines and conduct outreach to individual tribes, in addition to educating the public about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Source: Daily Kos
What Can You Do to Help:
Amplify. If you are a non-indigenous person, amplify indigenous voices by supporting indigenous creators talking about this issue and acknowledging indigenous blackout days. Financially support indigenous-owned businesses and, in the same vein, don’t financially support companies that exploit indigenous populations and engage in unabashed cultural appropriation. Free The Work has an extensive list of indigenous creator collectives which can be found here: https://freethework.com/article/must-know-indigenous-creator-platforms-and-collectives.
Educate. Educate yourself and your community about indigenous issues, especially the MMIWG2S crisis. While educating, be careful not to speak over indigenous voices, education and amplification go hand in hand. MMIW USA (https://mmiwusa.org/), the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw), the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw), and Native Women’s Wilderness (https://www.nativewomenswilderness.org/mmiw) are great resources to start with.
Say their names. Listen to their stories. Don’t let the system succeed in silencing and erasing them.
Amplification and education are ongoing, lifelong processes. Something immediate you can do is call your state senators and urge them to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act; the act was reauthorized by the House of Representatives this year with bipartisan support, but it is currently in gridlock in the Senate.
Sources Cited:
Comments