Even though there’s not a lot of data out in the main stream, I can’t think of any native family that I know that isn’t touched by this, and knows about it intimately. - Simone Senogles
We spoke with Simone Senogles and Natasha Kingbird on the morning show about the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls on Valentines' Day Eve which is also the eve of the annual, world-wide march in honor of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. For nearly 30 years, people have donned red and marched in unity on Valentine's Day to bring awareness and build community around this issue that affects so many native families.
The Urban Indian Health Institute resently releaseda comprehensive study compiling data from 71 urban areas across the United States. Among their findings is the fact that The National Crime Information Center reports that, in 2016, more than 5,700 American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls were reported missing. The United States Department of Justice's federal missing person database,NamUs, only logged 116 of those cases. This fact is only part of this pervasive problem facing native people in our country.
In this segment of Area Voices, Natasha Kingbird and Simone Senogles discuss many aspects of our society that perpetuate and even mask this issue. Institutional racism, a severe lack of comprehensive media reporting and a long history of the oppression of native people all add to this problem that touches the lives of so many Native Americans.
