Menu

Minnesota Forms Nation's First State Office on Missing, Murdered Indigenous People

Native American women make up less than 1 percent of the Minnesota’s population, but homicide rates for Native women were seven times higher than for white women between 1990 and 2016.

The state’s newly-passed public safety budget included funding to create the first state office in the nation with a focus on missing and murdered Indigenous relatives. Forming the office was a recommendation of a task force focused on the same issues. The task force provided a Report (https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ojp/Documents/missing-murdered-indigenous-women-task-force-report.pdf) to the MN state legislature which helped establish this new office. It is possibly the most comprehensive report in the nation. And the new office is the first in the nation. The bill also funds a new task force on missing and murdered African American women.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is creating a federal level unit (https://www.doi.gov/priorities/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-peoples). It will open the world of data collection, accountability and the ability to create more legislation so that those systemic issues that are attributed to the vulnerability of Native women and other groups will be addressed.

For full article (07.06.2021), see: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/07/06/minnesota-creates-nations-first-state-office-on-missing-murdered-indigenous-people?fbclid=IwAR36XhtpDBY5-5WIusLGlzvJ7Kw-FjDUHoJRkjh3LXvVB-VjRC1sFbKecoQ

Posted by: S. Jean Schafer

Go Back

Comment