New "Missing & Murdered Unit" To Try To Solve Crisis Affecting Native Women & Girls

 

 BIA Has New Missing & Murdered Unit

Native American – indigenous – women and girls are killed or go missing at phenomenal rates. 

 

The Urban Indian Health Institute says that homicide is the third leading cause of death among Native women. 

 

Native women also suffer rates of violence ten times more than the national average. 

 

May 5th is National Missing & Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. 

 

Deb Haaland, the new head of the U.S. Department of the Interior, who is Native American, has begun a special Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It will work to address this serious nationwide problem.

"Violence against indigenous peoples is a crisis that has been underfunded for decades," said Haaland. "Far too often, murders and missing persons cases in Indian Country go unsolved and unaddressed, leaving families and communities devastated."