A friend and neighbor posted a 2017 story by KSTP on Facebook this morning, Family Feels Race is Factor in Lack of Coverage About Missing Minneapolis Woman. It told an all-too-common story:
When young people disappear, their families are left with broken hearts and unanswered questions. It's even more frustrating for families who feel their missing children don't get enough attention.
JoJo Boswell is a young Native American woman who vanished in 2005. Boswell's family believes her disappearance failed to make the headlines because of her race.
An Internet search for information on Boswell produces her picture on all kinds of missing-person websites. But not a single news story can be found from July 2005 when the 19-year-old from Minneapolis disappeared.
After some digging, we found her mother, Geraldine Jackson, and sister, Dolly Boswell.
Read the rest at KSTP. The name rang a bell for us, having watched hearings for a bill sponsored by state representative Mary Kunesh-Podein, DFL-New Brighton, a Standing Rock Lakota descendant, to create a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) task force. In late January, Minnesota Public Radio's Briana Bierschbach reported in Bill would create group to track violence against Native American women:
No matter what was going on with her life, Dolly Boswell’s sister JoJo always called.
In July of 2005, JoJo was arrested and booked in the Steele County Jail in Owatonna. She was released on July 11, but she never arrived at home. Dolly tried to report her missing, but she was told by law enforcement that she had to wait at least 48 hours.
After that time period passed, her sister still hadn’t called or turned up, so Boswell tried to report her missing again. There was a dispute about which law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the case, and Boswell felt her concerns weren’t taken seriously because her sister was an adult and had criminal charges on her record.
“They basically told me: ‘I have more important things to do, I have children to find, call me when she returns home.’ My sister, regardless of what state she was in mentally or where she’s at, she would call me every day and check in every day,” she said. “She never made it home.”
Boswell and her sister are Native American — and their story is common in tribal communities across Minnesota and the nation, where women and girls go missing or are murdered at staggering rates. Despite making up less than 1 percent of the Minnesota population, homicide rates for Native American women in Minnesota were seven times higher than for white women between 1990 and 2016, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
Boswell was in St. Paul on Tuesday to tell her story to members of the House public safety committee considering a proposal to create a task force on missing and murdered indigenous women. ...
Years after JoJo's 2005 disappearance, her story was central to movement to create policy that would address the MMIW crisis.
Now the language is law. MPR's Jon Collins reports in Indigenous women are focus of new Minnesota task force:
Mysti Babineau said she was 20 and living in Isanti, Minn., when she was kidnapped and taken more than 50 miles to St. Paul.
"They held me at gunpoint. They told me they would kill me if I tried to escape, and they raped and they beat me, and they turned their back on me for like two minutes and I got away," Babineau said. "I don't know what would have happened to me had I not gotten away."
Babineau, a citizen of Red Lake Nation, knows she could have been yet another statistic. Indigenous women are the victims of violence, homicide and sexual assault at much higher rates than other groups. The National Crime Information Center reported more than 5,700 missing or murdered American Indian or Alaskan Native women in 2016.
Advocates at the state Legislature pushed for Minnesota to take action. The Legislature approved a new task force to look into the issue of what leads to such high levels of missing and murdered indigenous women and what can be done. . . .
Babineau is one of the women who told stories of violence they've experienced to the state Legislature this year.
"I'm privileged enough to use my pain hopefully to help others," she said. "I could be there that day. That was important to me that somebody was."
Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, DFL-New Brighton, sponsored legislation in the House to create the task force on missing and murdered indigenous women. Kunesh-Podein, who is of Standing Rock Lakota descent, was surprised that the proposal, which costs $150,000 over two years, attracted so much bipartisan support.
"The very first time we had a hearing in the House, there was hardly a dry eye in the hearing room," Kunesh-Podein said. "There were people in the audience that came to me weeks later and were like, 'Wow, I am still processing what I just heard. We had no idea.' They immediately pledged to do whatever they could to ensure that this actually happened."
There could be as many as 27 members on the task force, Kunesh-Podein said. That's partly because it includes everyone from policymakers to law enforcement to the tribes themselves. All are participating voluntarily.
"We're here for you now and we're going to do what we can to make this better so that nobody else has a mother, an aunt, or a grandma, daughter or sister walk out the door and never know if they are going to see them again," Kunesh-Podein said.
Kunesh-Podein said she hopes the task force will finally bring attention to this underserved community.
"If it was a white woman, if it was another group of people, then, yes, it would definitely have been focused on long ago and measures put in place," Kunesh-Podein said. "But they've just kind of been the silent, invisible population in our state, and we just have to build that strong awareness and understanding." . . .
Babineau said the task force is just a first step in addressing violence against indigenous women. She said people who were drawn to the movement and slogans need to stay engaged on the issue.
"I really ask that people who marched with us or called their representatives to really pay attention to this and read that report and show up when it's presented to the Legislature," Babineau said. "There is an opportunity here for accountability, for healing and justice."
As we noted in an earlier post. native women lawmakers in North and South Dakota are moving bills forward to address the MMIW crisis in Minnesota's neighboring states. See MN House passes MMIW bill (again), North and South Dakota bills became law earlier this year for more details.
Meanwhile, let's all hope the Boswell family finally gets some answers.
Photo: Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein gives the thumbs-up to supporters and advocates in the House Gallery after HF70 is passed on the House Floor May 9. It would establish a Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Photo by Andrew VonBank, via Session Daily.
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