WASHINGTON, D.C. — Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Savanna’s Act, a bill named after Savanna Greywind of the Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota, who was murdered while pregnant in 2017. The legislation aims to increase training, coordination, and data collection between tribal, local, and federal law enforcement on cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Currently, no federal agency consistently collects information on crimes against Indigenous women living on tribal land, leading to an ongoing crisis that leaves hundreds of sexual assault, murder, and missing persons cases involving Native women and girls ignored and unsolved. According to the Department of Justice, Native American women are murdered more than 10 times above the national average. Since 2010, over 330 Native women have gone missing or been killed in over 71 cities across the United States. Over several decades, a shocking 5,712 cases of missing Native women had been reported to the National Crime Information Center. Only 116 of these cases were ever logged into the U.S. Department of Justice’s missing person database.
While the Violence Against Women Act has made strides to address sexual and domestic violence against women living in tribal communities, and Savanna’s Act will take action to make certain that these heinous crimes are no longer ignored by federal agencies, we must continue to do everything in our power to bring attention to and advocate for the rights and lives of Indigenous women.
NOW calls on President Donald Trump to act quickly in signing Savanna’s Act into law, and demands that the Federal Government begin implementation of it immediately. As countless Indigenous activist groups have stated, we cannot wait a moment longer to ensure that there are #NoMoreStolenSisters.