Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

Indigenous women and girls across the world face disproportionately high rates of violence and sexual assault. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 56% of Native American women will experience sexual assault or rape in their lifetimes, but grassroots activists and people in indigenous communities say the true figure is closer to 80% or 90%, according to Christine Nobiss, director of Seeding Sovereignty's SHIFT Project. Targeted attacks on indigenous women continue to be a major issue across the Americas, despite policy efforts to allocate resources specifically toward protecting Native American women and girls. Nobiss says the Trump administration’s rollback of protections under the Violence Against Women Act is curbing progress toward ending attacks on indigenous women. #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

https://democracynow.org - After an agonizing 9-month search, the body of Olivia Lone Bear was found Tuesday in a pickup truck submerged in a lake right by her house on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The mother of five went missing in late October in New Town, North Dakota. Her disappearance has sparked renewed attention to the disproportionately high rates of disappearance, rape and murder of Native American women across the United States. These already-alarming rates are particularly high in areas of oil extraction, like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, which is the origin point for the Dakota Access pipeline. We speak with Olivia Lone Bear’s brother Matthew, who spent the last nine months searching for his sister. We also speak with Mary Kathryn Nagle, a citizen of Cherokee Nation and a partner at Pipestem Law, a law firm dedicated to the restoration of tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow Daily Email: https://democracynow.org/subscribe Google+: https://plus.google.com/+DemocracyNow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow Tumblr: http://democracynow.tumblr.com Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/Democracy-Now-p90/ Stitcher Radio: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/democracy-now

A chilling national inquiry has determined that the frequent and widespread disappearance and murder of indigenous girls and women in Canada is a genocide that the government itself is responsible for. The findings were announced by the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls at a ceremony on Monday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the families of victims. Many in the audience held red flowers to commemorate the dead. The national inquiry was convened after the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine from the Sagkeeng First Nation was found in the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2014. The report follows decades of anguish and anger as indigenous communities have called for greater attention to the epidemic of dead and missing indigenous women, girls and two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual people. Some 1,500 family members of victims and survivors gave testimony to the commission, painting a picture of violence, state-sanctioned neglect, and “pervasive racist and sexist stereotypes” that led nearly 1,200 indigenous women and girls to die or go missing between 1980 and 2012. Indigenous activists say this number could be a massive undercount, as many deaths go unreported and unnoticed. We speak with Marion Buller, chief commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and Robyn Bourgeois, assistant professor in the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock University. (Thumbnail image: Obert Madondo/Flickr) #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

The family of Native American teenager Kaysera Stops Pretty Places is demanding justice after she was found dead in Hardin, Montana, in late August, just two weeks after her 18th birthday. Kaysera was a member of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribal communities in Montana. She lived with her grandmother. According to her family, Kaysera was reported missing after she never came home on the night of August 24. On August 29, the body of a young woman was found in the town of Hardin. It wasn’t until two weeks later that local law enforcement confirmed it was Kaysera. The circumstances surrounding her death and disappearance remain a mystery. Her family believes she was murdered, but says local law enforcement is not treating her sudden disappearance and death as foul play. Kaysera is among at least 27 indigenous girls and women reported missing or murdered in Big Horn County in the past decade. Since 2010, there have also been at least 134 cases of missing or murdered indigenous girls and women in the state of Montana. We speak with Grace Bulltail, Kaysera’s aunt and an assistant professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We also speak with the family’s lawyer, Mary Kathryn Nagle, a citizen of Cherokee Nation and a partner at Pipestem Law, P.C., a law firm dedicated to the restoration of tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction. #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

https://democracynow.org - As the oil and gas pipeline boom crosses the United States and Canada, indigenous activists say the influx of male workers in Native communities has corresponded with a spike in the kidnapping and murder of indigenous women. We speak with Winona LaDuke, Ojibwe environmental leader and executive director of the group Honor the Earth. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.org Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: https://democracynow.org/donate FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE: Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow Daily Email: https://democracynow.org/subscribe Google+: https://plus.google.com/+DemocracyNow Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow Tumblr: http://democracynow.tumblr.com Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/Democracy-Now-p90/ Stitcher Radio: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/democracy-now

Indigenous women in the United States experience some of the highest rates of violence and murder in the country, according to federal data. Tribes and advocates attribute this to a confluence of factors - institutional racism, a lack of resources for tribes, and complicated jurisdictions that undermine tribal sovereignty. All of this has led to what tribal and federal officials have called a crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women in the US. So why are indigenous women going missing in the US and what more could be done to address the problem? Fault Lines travelled across the western US to Washington, Montana and New Mexico to find out. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ #AlJazeeraEnglish #FaultLines #IndigenousWomen

Big Horn County in Montana only has around 14,000 residents, so how it has become an epicenter of MMIW/ MMIP? With a massive toll of 50 uninvestigated Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in the county, families say they beg for investigations yet never get the truth about their loved ones. The stories are awful and the tragedy of MMIW/MMIP has to be stopped. SAY HER NAME is a short film highlighting the shocking story of Big Horn County, but we all know this is happening in indigenous communities across the entire continent. And if we know, why don't they? Say Her Name was originally intended to flag the release of the new version of Somebody’s Daughter but has now taken on a status of its own. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is Executive Producer of both films. Say Her Name will be premiered during Native News Online’s MMIW forum on MMIW Awareness Day, May 5, 2021. Secretary Haaland is scheduled to contribute to the forum. Visit the website at www.somebodysdaughter.com Like us at www.facebook.com/Somebodys-Daughter-MMIW-100789268115326 To request a screening for your tribe, community, organization or film festival contact: request@somebodysdaughter-mmiw.com. "Somebody’s Daughter is both hauntingly beautiful and emotionally devastating and should be recognized as one of the most important documentaries made on not only MMIW, but also on Indian Country in the twenty-first century." Native News Online.

"An intimate view of how inequality and deeply ingrained structural settler colonialism build accumulated violences in the lives of indigenous women and how these women resist"--

"When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher 'KC' Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and no one but his mother was actively looking for him. Unfolding like a gritty mystery, Yellow Bird traces Lissa's steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke's disappearance. She navigates two worlds -- that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oil workers, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit becomes an effort at redemption -- an atonement for her own crimes and a reckoning with generations of trauma. Yellow Bird is both an exquisitely written, masterfully reported story about a search for justice and a remarkable portrait of a complex woman who is smart, funny, eloquent, compassionate, and -- when it serves her cause -- manipulative. Ultimately, it is a deep examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing"-- |c Provided by publisher.

"Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is an ongoing crisis, with roots deep in the nation's colonial history. Despite numerous policies and programs developed to address the issue, Indigenous women continue to be targeted for violence at disproportionate rates. What insights can literature contribute where dominant anti-violence initiatives have failed? Centring the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence. Indigenous communities have been organizing against violence since newcomers first arrived, but the cases of missing and murdered women have only recently garnered broad public attention. Violence Against Indigenous Women joins the conversation by analyzing the socially interventionist work of Indigenous women poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and fiction-writers. Organized as a series of case studies that pair literary interventions with recent sites of activism and policy-critique, the book puts literature in dialogue with anti-violence debate to illuminate new pathways toward action. With the advent of provincial and national inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, a larger public conversation is now underway. Indigenous women's literature is a critical site of knowledge-making and critique. Violence Against Indigenous Women provides a foundation for reading this literature in the context of Indigenous feminist scholarship and activism and the ongoing intellectual history of Indigenous women's resistance."--Publisher's description.

The majority of scholarly and activist opinion by and about Indigenous women claims that feminism is irrelevant for them. Yet there is also an articulate, theoretically informed and activist constituency that identifies as feminist. This book is by and about Indigenous feminists, whose work demonstrates a powerful and original intellectual and political contribution demonstrating that feminism has much to offer Indignenous women in their struggles against oppression and for equality. Indigenous feminism is international in its scope: the contributors here are from Canada, the USA, Sapmi (Samiland), and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The chapters include theoretical contributions, stories of political activism, and deeply personal accounts of developing political consciousness as Aboriginal feminists.

In Keetsahnak / Our Murdered and Missing Indigenous Sisters, the tension between personal, political, and public action is brought home starkly as the contributors look at the roots of violence and how it diminishes life for all. Together, they create a model for anti-violence work from an Indigenous perspective. They acknowledge the destruction wrought by colonial violence, and also look at controversial topics such as lateral violence, challenges in working with "tradition," and problematic notions involved in "helping." Through stories of resilience, resistance, and activism, the editors give voice to powerful personal testimony and allow for the creation of knowledge.

Injustice in Indian country : jurisdiction, Living at the intersection of multiple identities in the United States can be dangerous. This is especially true for Native women who live on the more than 56 million acres that comprise America's Indian Country - the legal term for American Indian reservations and other land held in trust for Native people. Today, due to a complicated system of criminal jurisdiction, non-Native Americans can commit crimes against American Indians in much of Indian Country with virtual impunity. This has created what some call a modern day «hunting ground» in which Native women are specifically targeted by non-Native men for sexual violence. In this urgent and timely book, author Amy L. Casselman exposes the shameful truth of how the American government has systematically divested Native nations of the basic right to protect the people in their own communities. A problem over 200 years in the making, Casselman highlights race and gender in federal law to challenge the argument that violence against Native women in Indian country is simply collateral damage from a complex but necessary legal structure. Instead, she demonstrates that what's happening in Indian country is part of a violent colonial legacy - one that has always relied on legal and sexual violence to disempower Native communities as a whole.

Indigenous women migrants from Central America and Mexico face harrowing experiences of violence before, during, and after their migration to the United States, like all asylum seekers. But as Shannon Speed argues, the circumstances for Indigenous women are especially devastating, given their disproportionate vulnerability to neoliberal economic and political policies and practices in Latin America and the United States, including policing, detention, and human trafficking. Speed dubs this vulnerability "neoliberal multicriminalism" and identifies its relation to settler structures of Indigenous dispossession and elimination. Using innovative ethnographic practices to record and recount stories from Indigenous women in U.S. detention, Speed demonstrates that these women's vulnerability to individual and state violence is not rooted in a failure to exercise agency. Rather, it is a structural condition, created and reinforced by settler colonialism, which consistently deploys racial and gender ideologies to manage the ongoing business of occupation and capitalist exploitation. With sensitive narration and sophisticated analysis, this book reveals the human consequences of state policy and practices throughout the Americas and adds vital new context for understanding the circumstances of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. -- Provided by publisher.;"Incarcerated stories uses ethnography and oral history to document and assess the plight of indigenous women migrants from Mexico and Central America to the United States. Their harrowing experiences of violence before, during, and after their migration parallel the worst stories we hear about immigrants' journeys; but as Speed argues, the circumstances for indigenous women are especially devastating against the backdrop of neoliberal economic and political reforms that have taken hold in Latin America as well as the U.S. First these women were promised greater autonomy and economic opportunity under reforms meant to promote indigenous rights at home, but the attention given to indigenous recognition veiled policies that furthered the economic disruption for women"--

"An explosive examination of the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them. For decades, women--overwhelmingly from Indigenous backgrounds--have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern B.C. The highway is called the Highway of Tears by locals, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. In Highway of Tears, Jessica McDiarmid meticulously explores the effect these tragedies have had on communities in the region, and how systemic racism and indifference towards Indigenous lives have created a culture of "over-policing and under-protection," simultaneously hampering justice while endangering young Indigenous women. Highway of Tears will offer an intimate, first-hand look at the communities along Highway 16 and the families of the victims, as well as examine the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settler and Indigenous peoples that underlie life in the region. Finally, it will link these cases with others found across Canada--estimated to number over 1,200--contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country and of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the missing and murdered"--

"In October 2004 Amnesty International released a report titled Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to the Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada, in response to the appalling number of Indigenous women who are victims of racialized and sexualized violence. This report noted over 500 missing or murdered Indigenous women. Tragically, since this initial report the numbers have risen. Noting that Indigenous women are eight times more likely to die as a result of violence, the most recent RCMP report documented 1181 missing or murdered Aboriginal women and girls (2013), with more distressing cases being reported every month. After conducting an extensive investigation here in Canada, in March of 2015 the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued their report condemning Canada for the ongoing failure to protect Indigenous women and girls calling it a "grave human rights violation" (UNCEDAW). Over 40 separate reports have outlined the increase in racialized and sexualized violence against Indigenous women, yet the recommendations they contain are ignored. The failure of the federal government to respond to this issue has resulted in widespread pressure from human rights groups, grassroots movements, and community leaders. This collection supports the call for prompt response and action and urges Justin Trudeau to hold his promise to immediately launch a public inquiry. This collection brings together the voices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, frontline workers and activists who weave together academic and personal narratives, spoken word and poetry in the spirit of demanding immediate action. Our intent is to honour our missing sisters and their families, to honour their lives and their stories."--

In this revolutionary text, prominent Native American studies scholar and activist Andrea Smith reveals the connections between different forms of violence--perpetrated by the state and by society at large--and documents their impact on Native women. Beginning with the impact of the abuses inflicted on Native American children at state-sanctioned boarding schools from the 1880s to the 1980s, Smith adroitly expands our conception of violence to include the widespread appropriation of Indian cultural practices by whites and other non-Natives; environmental racism; and population control. Smith deftly connects these and other examples of historical and contemporary colonialism to the high rates of violence against Native American women--the most likely to suffer from poverty-related illness and to survive rape and partner abuse. Smith also outlines radical and innovative strategies for eliminating gendered violence.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, the United States, and Latin America; notably those in the FNIM and Native American communities. Across Latin America, it is estimated that Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately the victims of femicide. According to a report prepared by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, representatives from Canada, Mexico, and the United States have resolved to work together as part of the North American Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls. A mass movement in the US and Canada works to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.

For Indigenous communities in North America, the links between land and body create a powerful intersection—one that, when overlooked or discounted, can threaten their very existence. Extractive industries have drilled, mined, and fracked on lands on or near resource-rich Indigenous territories for decades.

I performed an e-ceremony to honour #MMIWG. Pay your tribute here.

In Canada, Indigenous women have a 12 times greater risk of becoming missing or murdered than any other race. See for yourself: compare the risks of being missing and murdered in Canada by ethnic group and province. #mmiw #mmiwg #takentheseries

The National Inquiry’s Final Report reveals that persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The two volume report calls for transformative legal and social changes to resolve the crisis that has devastated Indigenous communities across the country.

Reports Amnesty International's 2004 Stolen Sisters report was one of the first reports to systematically document the pattern of violence experienced by

In this article, on the basis of interviews with seven Navajo women, the author discusses the Navajo woman’s perspective on domestic violence. These discussions reveal several factors that distinguish the Navajo woman’s experience of abuse from that of the Anglo3 woman. These factors are examined in light of historical and contemporary understandings of the Navajo world. Three cultural elements can help us understand the Navajo woman’s experience of abuse: the cultural concept of hózhó, the searing tale (in the Creation Story) of the quarrel between First Man and First Woman, a quarrel that brought great tragedy to the people; and the Kinaáldá, the female puberty rite. It is the author’s argument that these facets of the Navajo culture, in addition to Western explanations for women’s staying with abusive partners, are powerful contributors to the Navajo woman’s understanding of abuse in her life and if we are to develop successful techniques for intervention, we must consider these elements as well as those of the dominant culture.

Nationwide, the voices of Indigenous people have united to raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous woman and girls (MMIWG). Though awareness of the crisis is growing, data on the realities of this violence is scarce.

This report focuses on sexual violence against indigenous women in the USA. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that women are able to enjoy their right to freedom from sexual violence. As citizens of particular tribal nations, the welfare and safety of American Indian and Alaska Native women are directly linked to the authority and […]

Resource extraction takes a toll on more than just the economy and the environment.

When Meskee Yanabah Yatsayte started Navajo Nation Missing Persons Updates seven years ago, she’d never heard of the acronym MMIWG, which stands for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and wasn’t widely used at the time.

The Billings Gazette has continued to examine one of the most urgent issues in Montana and our region — missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.