Within the United States, Indigenous women experience a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average and Arizona has the third-highest case rate of missing Indigenous women and girls.
The ASU chapter of the National Lawyers Guild along with the Native American Student Law Association joined together to create a virtual event to make the public aware of this crisis.
This Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Panel discussed not only bringing awareness to this complex issue but also the process of passing HB2570, a measure that establishes a ‘study committee on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.’
“We knew that we wanted to take a bigger, broader picture of what was going on with missing and murdered indigenous women and girls,” Rep. Jennifer Jermaine said.
Jermaine was one of the speakers for the event, discussing her work on HB2570. The goals of this bill were to use study data to drive future legislation and partner with other tribes and Indigenous communities to ensure that this bill wouldn’t cause harm to survivors or infringe on tribal sovereignty.
“We wanted to build on work that had already been done. So we made sure that we were building the committee in an inclusive way,” Jermaine said.
Sen. Victoria Steele who ran the senate version of HB2570 addressed some of the grim statistics surrounding this crisis.
“The stories and statistics are not only tragic. They are heartbreaking. 84% of indigenous women experience violence in their lifetimes,” Steele said.
Steele also said that one and three Indigenous women are likely to be raped in their lifetime. Despite the high numbers of violence against Indigenous women, many of these cases go unreported.
The pandemic also created more problems with data collection, poverty, and unemployment rates increasing significantly among Indigenous communities.
“The data has been so incomplete when it comes to cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls that we didn’t even know what we didn’t know, now thanks to the study, we know a bit more,” Steele said.
Libby Murphy, co-president of the National Lawyers Guild had been looking in-depth at the statistics of missing and murdered indigenous women and wanted to bring these issues to the attention of the law school.
“Although this event focuses on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. This is an issue for all indigenous people, including men and two-spirit individuals,” Murphy said.
Educating law students and explaining how to get involved was a big goal behind the creation of this event. Highlighting the women behind this event and their accomplishments for the Indigenous community was another.
“The National Lawyers Guild is all about social activism and promoting equality for all and seeing all the disparities between Indigenous women and people, my heart just sunk in my chest,” Murphy said.
Hilary Edwards, an enrolled member of the Swinomish Indian tribal community and an ASU law student ambassador partnered with Murphy to bring this event to life in the hopes of bringing these issues to light for the general public.
“Something that was concerning to me was the fact that to the general public, there’s a huge misconception that our indigenous people just started going missing,” Edwards said.
Indigenous women and girls going missing isn’t a new issue and has been happening since Europeans came to colonize the Americas.
“I think we’re in a position to take action and not only acknowledge what the issue is but do something about it and ensure that future generations aren’t subjected to these same statistics, ” Edwards said.
Edwards highlighted that regardless of COVID-19 causing this event to be moved online, this event was a big step in engaging, educate, and empower both indigenous people and their allies.
“In the media and in the data, bringing their stories to light through this data is an integral part of moving toward meaningful change that ends this epidemic of violence and allows our communities to begin to heal,“ Steele said.
Contact the reporter at stlee9@asu.edu.
