SPEAK UP, SPEAK OUT, IGNITE CHANGE: STAND UP FOR MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Call Elected Officials to Advocate for Dedicated Resources Addressing the MMIP Crisis
MMIW/P is a centuries-long invisible crisis that continues to shatter the lives and families of Indigenous communities, and impact our country at large.
We can do so much more to address this emergency.
We can advocate for state task forces with resources earmarked for MMIP prevention, investigation, and data collection. Currently, most states provide no dedicated support for these essential services, exacerbating the catastrophic consequences.
establishing data collection procedures to quantify the MMIP crisis
You can also use your voice:
follow social media accounts of MMIW groups like those listed here, advocates, and Indigenous people
like, comment, re-post, and share their messages
click on news links related to MMIP stories signaling their value to publishers
continue to listen, learn, and share in your own voice
With your action, we can send an urgent message to governments at state and federal levels, demanding they:
Take immediate and concerted steps to address the crisis of MMIP. The scope of this issue demands that the actions taken are comprehensive and sustained. Chronic underfunding represents a failure to uphold and honor its treaty obligations to Indigenous people and has significantly contributed to the MMIP crisis.
Provide steady, equitable, and non-discretionary funding directly to tribal nations to support the public safety, health care, education, housing, and economic development of Indigenous people.
Establish an interagency working group to share expertise and develop and improve systems and methodologies that federal government agencies could replicate for the collection of accurate and disaggregated data on hard to count Indigenous populations. Accurate data collection produces data that captures the community’s true needs, and thus can drive larger programmatic funding resulting in a cost-effective use of federal resources.
Negligence
The harsh realities below are due in part to the failure of the federal government to adequately address the wellbeing of Indigenous populations over the last two centuries. These failures have created an invisible civil rights crisis in our nation. Despite minimal progress, the crisis remains and the federal government continues to fail to adequately support the social and economic welfare of its Indigenous people. These failures include longstanding and continuing disregard for tribes’ infrastructure, self-governance, housing, education, health, and economic development. The additional failure of providing sufficient federal funding undermines the ability of tribal governments to provide criminal justice and public safety for their citizens. Indigenous communities exchanged 400 million plus acres of land, their way of life, and lives, for peace, and the promise of support for their people, and the United States consistently falls short of their responsibility..
Data We Know:
According to DOJ crime statistics, Indigenous people are the victims of violent crime at a rate of two times the national average.
Indigenous women are ten times more likely to be murdered and four times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the national average.
There is also a disproportionate number of unresolved or unprosecuted cases involving Indigenous women who have been murdered or gone missing.
Indigenous youth experience violent crimes ten times higher than the national average.
Due in part to the violent crime rates, the average life expectancy for Indigenous men on some reservations is less than 50 years.
Indigenous people are also being killed in police encounters at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group.
Indigenous youth are arrested at a rate two-to-three times that of other groups, and evidence suggests that Indigenous defendants in federal and state courts may receive harsher sentences than other groups.
Indigenous populations continue to rank near the bottom of all Americans in terms of health, education, and employment.
RIDE.
Join us, alongside the Medicine Wheel Riders, as we collectively incite hope and call for action.
Lifting up the powerful—and often silenced—stories of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Relatives is a critical step in creating meaningful change.
Uncover the actions that all of us must take to raise the awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Relatives and advocate for the end of this violence.
Would you like to screen WE RIDE FOR HER in your community? See our guide to learn more about screening requirements, plus an abundance of information and resources to help make your screening a success.
