National day of awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

I am starting my research for book number three in my One-Armed Detective series. This book will be set in the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Lefty Bruder, while having lunch in Winslow, AZ, is introduced to a Navajo woman whose fifteen-year-old daughter has gone missing. And of course, he is compelled to help her find her daughter. Below is some information I’ve found during my research.

Today, May 5, is National day of awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. I did some research on this issue and found the following disturbing statistics.

84.3% of American Indian and Alaska Native women experience violence in their lifetimes. 56% experience sexual violence. In comparison, 34% of non-indigenous women will experience violence in their lifetime. According to Native Women’s Wilderness, indigenous women are murdered at a rate 10x higher than all other ethnicities.  

The number of missing indigenous women and girls reported by the National Crime Information Center in 2020 was 5295. Washington is the state with the highest number of missing women and girls. The average age of the victims is 31 years old. 415 native children were reported missing in 2021.

The total number of missing women and girls of all ethnicities in the in the US is 250,000 per year. This is an astounding figure.

The percentage of women and girls that go missing is 2% and that percentage is consistent between indigenous and non-indigenous women and girls. This means, in a youth group of a couple hundred teenagers, at least two of those girls will go missing.

If you’d like to help with this issue, you can wear red to support this cause and visit the websites below.

https://mmiwusa.org/ – Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw – Native Hope

https://www.nativewomenswilderness.org/mmiw – Native Women’s Wilderness