May 5th is the National Day of Awareness for our Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR), when we work to raise awareness and honor the memory of Indigenous women who were stolen, and honor those who are still missing. It is also a time to stand in solidarity with their families and communities, recognizing their grief, resilience, and calls for justice.
The date was chosen because the Montana congressional delegation pushed for the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution declaring May 5 a National Day of Awareness because it was the birthday of Hanna Harris, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe who went missing on July 4, 2013.
According to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, “On some reservations, Native women face murder rates more than ten times the national average,” with many of these disappearances and murders being linked directly to sexual assault, sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and sex trafficking.
Here is an article from the Center for Native American Youth and Sage Chief (Oglala Lakota and Diné), a 19-year-old student at Oglala Lakota College, on Fighting Against an Epidemic of Injustice on the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons.
“We are given so many excuses as to why these cases are not handled correctly,” she writes, “it’s time somebody starts giving us solutions.”
NOW members agree—and we support policy changes, legislative reform, and more attention paid to communities that for too long have been unheard, unseen and left without allies or assistance from state and federal governments.
But Donald Trump’s proposed 2026 budget calls for a $107 million reduction—a 20% cut—to tribal law enforcement funding, which would be devastating for officers who are already overworked and understaffed.
The MMIWR crisis is rooted in centuries of systemic violence, colonialism, and erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. Too many cases are routinely ignored, mishandled, or never counted, and without a national missing persons database for MMIWR, we can’t know the true scope of this epidemic.
What’s more, earlier this year the Trump Administration took offline the “Not One More” report, the findings of a federal commission that interviewed survivors of violence and families who have lost loved ones. This is ironic, considering it was Donald Trump who in 2020 signed into law the act that created the commission.
The commission cited the U.S. government’s “failure to fulfill its trust responsibilities” to tribal nations, “coupled with historic policies that sought to disconnect [American Indian and Alaska Native] people from their land, language and culture, have given rise to a public health, public safety, and justice crisis in tribal communities.”
The crisis “is most notably reflected in the federal government’s failure to effectively prevent and respond to the violence against” Native people.
On today’s National Day of Awareness for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives, NOW members join in the call to enact those recommendations and make the crisis of missing and murdered women a top priority.