There is a lot of violence against women and girls in Native American towns across North America this week, and people are calling for long-term solutions.
Through prayer walks, self-defence classes, marches, and talks at state capitols, they are calling for law enforcement to work together better to find missing people and solve the 4,300 open FBI murder cases this year.
Some parents say they will use Monday, which is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, to talk to their kids about what’s at risk.
A lot of young women are putting bright red handprints over their mouths to say they will speak out for those who have been silent. The U.S. Justice Department says that Indigenous women are more than twice as likely as other women in the country to be killed.
What Indigenous people think about “the talk”
Lisa Mulligan, who is from Forest County Potawatomi, brings this message with her to parades out West on her motorbike, which she rides from Wisconsin. As her granddaughters get older, she hopes to “have the talk” with them about what they might face in their lives.
She is going to tell them that her father was killed and that another family member was a victim of sex trafficking.
Miller said, “That’s why I ride for it.” “I don’t want other people to have that experience.”
Christina Castro has a daughter who is 12 years old. She lives in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. A citizen of the Navajo Nation, Joylana Begay-Kroupa has a kid who is 10 years old. They have also given each other painful reality checks in order to keep their kids safe and encourage change.
“We as Indigenous people can’t just NOT talk to our daughters about violence against girls.” Castro, who helped start the advocacy group 3 Sisters Collective in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said, “I’ve had to talk to my daughter about bodily autonomy ever since she was born.”
The group is holding self-defence classes, giving speeches, and playing a part of the documentary “She Cried That Day,” which is about the unsolved death of Navajo woman Dione Thomas in 2015.
The Phoenix Indian Centre, which helps Native Americans with social issues, will soon start teaching self-defence as well.
“I always act like an aunt.” “You naturally want to protect your kids, nieces, nephews, and cousins,” said Begay-Kroupa, who runs the centre. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen this kind of suffering happen over and over again in Indigenous communities.”
She said that when she talks to her young son, she doesn’t hide anything.
Began-Kroupa said, “We have family members who have disappeared and we have no idea where they are.” “He wants to know why they left, where they went, and what happened to them.”
The 15-year-old from the Gila River Indian Community who wore the red handprint on Saturday said that Native Americans should always speak out. This was the message she got when she had “the talk.”
The speaker said, “Young people need to know about this because it could happen to them.” “‘The Talk,’
Native American guys aren’t safe either. Donovan Paddock said that two of his uncles were killed. He was at an awareness walk in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Friday. He lost his Navajo grandpa Layton Paddock Sr. for months before his body was found in Winslow.
Paddock said, “My goal now is to help people who can’t find their loved ones.”
Years of lobbying have not led to quick results.
Some tribes have asked government teams to run drills that show what to do when someone goes missing.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty said that adding Indigenous Alerts to all 574 nationally recognised tribes’ AMBER Alert systems would take more money and coordination with them.
It wasn’t until lately that the federal government started to pay for tribal alerts. Crotty said that tribes had to lobby the Federal Communications Commission before Apple updated iPhones to support them.
A Navajo woman named Pamela Foster has been a strong supporter ever since her daughter Ashlynne Mike was kidnapped and killed in 2016. A survey done a few years later found that 76% of tribes were taking part in state alerts. However, some state organisers said they still didn’t have tribal contact information.
In April, the Trump administration said that the FBI would be sending more resources to 10 field offices to help the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Missing and Murdered Unit and native police get ready to lay charges.
Congress asked for the “Not One More” suggestions to be made in 2023. You can still see them at the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Centre, but not on the Justice Department website. In it, Deb Haaland, who used to be Secretary of the Interior, said that more than 84% of Native American men and women will be abused at some point in their lives.