MMIW+ Resources
Resources to learn about MMIW+
A note:
A lot of these resources contain graphic descriptions of violence against Indigenous women and may be triggering.
I have borrowed heavily from a variety of resources. This is by no means exhaustive, but rather a primer for anyone just beginning to learn about MMIW+.
Our Bodies, Our Stories is a series of reports that details the scope of violence against Native women across the nation.
“We have always known that violence against Native women was an issue, but people refused to acknowledge it. We are showing that data is going to be important to bring change and that more research is urgently needed to protect our women and girls.”
The Red Justice Project
Indigenous true crime stories podcast
The mission of this podcast is to bring awareness to the many cases of missing and murdered indigenous people in North America, and the way we are erased in American media. We will also be highlighting the many political and social injustices faced by indigenous people. Crimes of continual cultural genocide and the resilience indigenous people have to endure for generations to come.
White House issues proclamation on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day
Today, thousands of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Native Americans continue to cry out for justice and healing. On Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember the Indigenous people who we have lost to murder and those who remain missing and commit to working with Tribal Nations to ensure any instance of a missing or murdered person is met with swift and effective action.
Madam Secretary Deb Haaland being sworn in as the very first Indigenous Secretary of the Interior
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Thursday the formation of a new unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to address the missing and murdered Indigenous persons crisis, with a goal of coordinating different federal resources to investigate cases.
“Consider the fact that a former Secretary of the Interior once proclaimed his goal to quote, ‘Civilize or exterminate us.’ I am a living testament of the failure of that ideology.”
Image: Pax Ahimsa Gethen
Families speak about MMIW+ on a personal level in Teen Vogue
Tuff First, Fort Peck Sioux, Olivia Lone Bear’s uncle, tells Teen Vogue that he’s “still in disbelief” about the loss his family has suffered.
I’m still confused and angry. [It’s] hard to find the right words...When she first disappeared, her two brothers, her uncle, and myself searched on ATVs every day of the first month. We all prayed so hard to find her.
“Sovereignty and Safety for Native Women and Children”
Providing national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA
“Threaten Our Existence
Expect Our Resistance”
MMIW USA’s number one mission is to bring our missing home and help the families of the murdered cope and support them through the process of grief. We give them hands-on support and guidance and if we don’t have the answers, we get the answers so that these families do not feel abandoned and alone in this struggle like so many have before them. Our broader goal is to eradicate this problem so that the future generations thrive. We are doing that through education of the threats that they face and self-defense. We just started a monthly program to do just that. It is called Staying Sacred and we educate and have self-defense lessons at every meeting. Our strength lies in the fact that every single one of the staff and volunteers have been assaulted or trafficked and our passion is to be the kind of organization that we needed growing up and beyond.
From Jordan Marie Brings Three Horses Daniel’s Instagram @nativein_la
Indian Country Today highlights Indigenous runners bringing awareness to MMIW+:
“There was just an opportunity to create this space and be intentional with it and offering prayers, praying for justice, praying for visibility and support for this movement and the families and the advocates. And just my way of giving back to them and letting them know that someone among many, I’m sure, are thinking about them and not forgetting them.”
Indigenous communities running in solidarity on 5 May
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel
Elite distance runner
Native Women Running
Visibility, inspiration and community of native women runners on and off the reservation
Verna Volker
Founder of Native Women Running, and who I secretly call my Navajo running Instagram auntie
Red Earth Running Company
Elevating voice and visibility of the
global Indigenous running community
Image: Katherine Fogden, NMAI
REDress Project installed on the Smithsonian in March 2019
On a steel-gray winter day, the red dresses each hung, flapping in the wind along the plaza surrounding the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian—35 of them—in different shapes, sizes and shades. They serve as stand-ins for the potentially thousands of native women who go missing or are murdered each year. There is no definitive tally due to the tangled nature of jurisprudence in and around Indian Country. Law enforcement and sometimes the general public are indifferent. And resources to more fully document the fates of these women is lacking.
