VALIER, Mont. (AP) — They’re called an invisible and disposable population. Native American women have gone missing and been murdered for years, but many cases remain unsolved. Now the push is on for answers — and ways to stop these tragedies.
Federal and state lawmakers have proposed or adopted a series of measures designed to address the problem of missing and murdered Native women and girls and related issues, such as human trafficking, domestic violence and rape.
No one knows precisely how many of these cases there are because some go unreported, others aren’t documented thoroughly and there isn’t a specific government database to track them. But one U.S. senator with victims in her home state calls this an epidemic, a long-standing problem linked to inadequate resources, outright indifference and a confusing jurisdictional maze.