Faith Reflection

May 5 was a day of remebrance for  missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and the beginning of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Awareness Month.

In the ELCA, we are called to live out our faith in relationship – with God, with one another and with creation. To be in relationship is to be accountable. It is to see, to hear and to act when injustice is present. The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) is not just an Indigenous issue, it is a human issue, a faith issue and a moral crisis that calls all of us into deeper discipleship and action.

For non-Native women, being an ally in this work means acknowledging the ways that colonialism, racism and gendered violence continue to shape our world today. It means recognizing that the systems meant to protect women often fail Indigenous women and that silence and inaction allow this violence to continue. It means seeing the disparities in whose stories are heard, whose cases are solved and who is given the dignity of justice.

 The Departments of Justice, Veteran’s Affairs, and Interior have created a joint task force focused on raising awareness of MMIWG and reducing violent crime against American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Murder is the third leading cause of death for American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control. They face murder rates more than ten times the national average.  

More than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women (84.3%) have experienced violence in their lifetime.  

More than half have experienced sexual violence, physical violence by an intimate partner, and just under half havee experienced stalking, according to the National Institute of Justice.

Despite efforts to raise awareness, of the 5,712 cases of MMIWG in the United States, only 116 were included in the Department of Justice (DOJ) database. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) estimates there are approximately 4,200 missing and murdered cases that have gone unsolved. These cases remain unsolved often due to a lack of investigative resources available to identify new information from witness testimony, re-examine new or retained material evidence, as well as reviewing fresh activities of suspects.

The crisis is not just about individual cases; it's a reflection of historical injustices, racism, and systemic inequalities that disproportionately impact Indigenous communities.