North Dakota's US Senators have introduced bills directed at ending the epidemic of missing and murdered Native American women, the Forum News Service's Blake Gumprecht reports in two articles, ND's US senators propose legislation to address 'epidemic' of missing and murdered Native women (October 1) and These are not isolated cases': Sen. Heitkamp highlights missing and murdered native women in introducing 'Savanna's Act' (October 5).
The latter article highlights the dramatic introduction of Senator Heitkamp's bill:
In September 2010, Stella Marie Trottier-Graves, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, went to a bar with her cousin. She was never again seen by family members after that night. Thirteen days later, they were notified that her dead body was found in the pickup of a male tribal member.
In 2005, Lakota Rae Renville, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe of North and South Dakota, met a man online and moved to Missouri to be with him. She was forced into sex trafficking and later that year her dead body was found, wrapped in carpet padding in an open gravel pit.
In April 1993, Monica Wickre, a 42-year-old mother of three, born and raised on the Turtle Mountain reservation, who lived near Aberdeen, S.D., disappeared. Two months later, her badly decomposed body was found by a canoeist in the James River near Aberdeen.
In winter 1979, Mona Lisa Two Eagle, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe of South Dakota, got into a pickup with two men. She never returned. Two weeks later, her father and brother found her frozen body in a pasture. She'd been beaten and left alone in a blizzard.
Nobody has been convicted in the disappearance or killing of any of these native women.
North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp told their stories on the floor of the U.S. Senate Thursday, Oct. 5, to dramatize what has been called an "epidemic" of missing and murdered Native American women on Thursday. She also introduced a bill to address that issue on Thursday.
The bill is entitled "Savanna's Act" and is named for slain Fargo woman Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a member of the Spirit Lake tribe, who disappeared in August while eight months pregnant and whose body was found eight days later in the Red River. Heitkamp also told LaFontaine-Greywind's story in her 20-minute speech on the Senate floor.
"These are not isolated cases," Heitkamp said. "This goes on every day in America. It's time for Congress to recognize this epidemic."
The main purpose of Heitkamp's bill is to improve the collection and dissemination of data on missing and murdered Native American women. Activists have argued that one obstacle to improving awareness of the issue is that so little data is available. The U.S. government has no systematic way of collecting data on missing and murdered native women.
Senator Al Franken is a co-sponsor. Read more about the legislation at the Grand Forks Herald and Heitkamp's official website. The latter notes:
Heitkamp today also launched a website with key resources and information on missing and murdered indigenous women, including offering steps to take if you know or suspect a person has gone missing by force.
In the earlier article, Gumprecht reported:
Republican Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, introduced a bill this week that would create a tribal grant program within the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime. The bill would require five percent of a federal crime victims fund be allocated to Indian tribes.
One of the recommendations in the United Tribes letter was that tribes be given greater access to money in the crime victims fund. Hoeven's office said that currently only about 0.7 percent of those funds are provided to tribes despite the fact that American Indian and Alaska Native communities are victimized at much higher rates than other groups.
"It is critical for tribal communities, which experience some of the highest crime rates in the country, to have greater access to victim resources," Hoeven said.
Hoeven's legislation has bipartisan support. It has seven co-sponsors, four of them Democrats. One of those is North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. . . .
The bill is S.1870. Senator Franken is also a co-sponsor of this legislation. Heitkamp's bill does not have a number as of this posting.
Bluestem's editor recently moved to Summit, SD, which is on the Lake Traverse Reservation. The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate's home includes land in both North and South Dakota. A tribal elder and friend notes that these bills are both very welcome in efforts to end the demeaning of value and sanctity of native women's lives, adding that rewards for information about missing and murdered women might also aid in bringing offenders to justice.
We're reading Andrea Smith's book Conquest, which was reissued by Duke University Press in 2015. In the foreword, White Earth activist and Harvard trained economist Winona LaDuke notes how the intensive search and resources offered during the Dru Sjodin kidnapping and murder contrasts with the paucity of such tools for the many missing and murdered native women. Smith's work was first published in 2005. That the text is still relevant and vital speaks volumes about the ongoing tragedy.
Photo: U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., speaks with the images of four murdered native women in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, Oct. 5, to introduce her bill “Savanna’s Act” to address the issue of murdered and missing native women. Special to Forum News Service. Via Grand Forks Herald.
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