Feds Launch Effort to Address Missing and Murdered Native Americans
Roz Brown, Public News Service – NM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A task force charged with solving cases of
missing and murdered Native Americans held its first meeting in
Washington DC this week.
The Trump administration announced the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative last year and placed coordinators in 11 U.S. Attorney’s offices to develop protocols for a better law enforcement response.
Jolene Holgate coordinates the Missing and Murdered Diné Relatives
initiative on the Navajo Nation. She leads forums about the resources
available to help people when someone they know goes missing.
“This has been happening since the time of colonization in the Southwest
for us,” says Holgate. “That includes human trafficking, sexual
violence – violence perpetrated against us by non-Native individuals.”
The Navajo Nation includes parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.
A 2018 Associated Press investigation revealed that it’s impossible to
know how many Native Americans are missing because some cases go
unreported, others aren’t documented, and no specific government
database exists to track the cases.
Men and women from American Indian and Alaska Native communities face
higher rates of domestic and sexual violence than other populations,
according to the Department of Justice.
Holgate says the federal task force may be able to make a meaningful
difference if it continues to engage with local groups already working
to solve the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous peoples.
“It’s really a matter of them continuing to connect with organizations
that are already engaged in the work,” says Holgate. “And our role,
especially at the grassroots level, is to hold those federal entities
accountable to what they’re going to deliver.”
Holgate has helped facilitate two forums in New Mexico, with another
scheduled in Montezuma Creek, Utah, next month. The federal task force
is expected to provide an update on its work in a year and produce a
report in two years.
