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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy no one knows how many Indigenous women have been murdered
Abigail Echo-Hawk was part of a small team of researchers at the Seattle Indian Health Board that released a landmark study in 2018 on the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women. The report not only hinted at the hidden magnitude of the problem documenting more than 500 cases, predominantly in the Western United States, stretching back to the 1940s it also highlighted major shortcomings in the crime data used to understand the issue.
In the absence of comprehensive government information, Echo-Hawk and her colleagues combed media reports, reached out to the families of victims across Indian Country and called community leaders and organizers to compile their study.
We need to understand the base issue of the problem, said Echo-Hawk, the executive vice president the Seattle Indian Health Board and a citizen of the Pawnee Nation. Where are we? What does the data look like? What do the leaders need?
Three years later, there is still no definitive count of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S., in part because of underreporting of crimes and police reports that misclassify Native American women as white or Hispanic. Police generally do not document victims tribal affiliation often, police forms lack a field for this information which means even tribal governments dont understand the scope of the problem among their own citizens. But based on available research, more than 4 out of 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women experience violence in their lifetime, according to a 2016 National Institute of Justice study.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-one-knows-how-many-indigenous-women-are-murdered-each-n1277565
Bayard
(21,802 posts)The situation needs a lot more coverage.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)Irish_Dem
(45,619 posts)ItsjustMe
(11,166 posts)niyad
(112,432 posts)Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance,