Continuing the fight for missing and murdered native women and girls

This week, as Native American tribes and communities gather to honor the women and girls who have been murdered or gone missing at alarming rates here in Central Washington and across the country, the glaring question remains: When will this end?

For decades, indigenous women have faced a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average, and in Washington state, native women account for 7% of all reported missing women.

The lack of a streamlined reporting apparatus and accurate data combined with jurisdictional challenges have left tribes and local communities with an uphill battle to deliver justice for indigenous women and their loved ones.

I have worked with tribal leaders and law enforcement across Washington state to hear directly from our communities about how the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) affects their families and loved ones. From what I have learned over several years, there is a critical need for additional resources and federal assistance to address this crisis — one that affects our Native American tribes and reservations and their surrounding communities.

We made excellent progress last Congress with the passage of Savanna’s Act, which empowers local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement to develop best practices for reporting and investigating MMIW cases. While this bill was signed into law in October of 2020, the Department of Justice has yet to fulfill their statutory deadline to update Congress on how the reforms and guidelines are being implemented to better protect native women and communities. I am deeply disappointed this deadline has not been met, given the dire state of the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women in Central Washington and across the country, and I am repeatedly urging Attorney General Garland to act swiftly to execute these policies in order to deliver justice to the families and loved ones of these women.

I will not stop there. I continue to call for a Cold Case Task Force Office in Yakima to help solve these cases and deliver justice to the families of these women in our communities. And this week, I am hosting a tribal law enforcement roundtable with the Department of Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland, and members of local tribes to discuss solutions to streamline the tribal law enforcement hiring process, so our tribes have the support and resources they need to protect their communities. I will also be hosting an MMIW listening session to allow tribal members to tell their stories and share the issues that they face with Assistant Secretary Newland directly and highlight the urgent need to establish a missing and murdered unit in Central Washington.

I will never stop raising the voices of these women and their families in Central Washington, and we must work together to deliver justice to missing and murdered indigenous women. By spreading awareness and telling the stories of these women, we are making progress; but we must take strong, decisive actions to provide the resources and relief our Native American friends and neighbors need.