Disappeared indigenous women

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, the United States, and Latin America; notably those in the FNIM (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) and Native American communities. Across Latin America, it is estimated that Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately the victims of femicide. According to a report prepared by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, representatives from Canada, Mexico, and the United States have resolved to work together as part of the North American Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls. A mass movement in the US and Canada works to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police. MMIW has been described as a Canadian national crisis and a Canadian genocide. In response to repeated calls from Indigenous groups, activists, and non-governmental organizations, the Government of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau established a national public inquiry, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in September 2016. According to the inquiry's backgrounder, between the years 1980 and 2012, Indigenous women and girls represented 16% of all female homicides in Canada, while constituting only 4% of the female population in Canada. The inquiry was completed and presented to the public on June 3, 2019. A 2014 report by the RCMP, titled "Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview", found that more than 1,000 Indigenous women were murdered over a span of 30 years. From 2001 to 2015, the homicide rate for Indigenous women in Canada was almost six times as high as the homicide rate for other women, representing "4.82 per 100,000 population versus 0.82 per 100,000 population.": 22  In Nunavut, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and in the provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, this over-representation of Indigenous women among homicide victims was even higher.: 22  The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) has documented 582 cases since the 1960s, with 39% after 2000—though advocacy groups say that many more women have been missing in Canada, with the highest number of cases in British Columbia. Notable cases have included 19 women killed in the Highway of Tears murders, and some of the 49 women from the Vancouver area murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton. In the US, Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Indigenous women is sexually assaulted during her life, and 67% of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Indigenous perpetrators. The federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was reauthorized in 2013, which for the first time gave tribes jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute felony domestic violence offenses involving both Native American offenders as well as non-Native offenders on reservations. In 2019, the House of Representatives, led by the Democratic Party, passed H.R. 1585 (Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019) by a vote of 263–158, which increases tribes' prosecution rights much further. The bill was not taken up by the Senate, which at the time had a Republican majority. Law enforcement, journalists, and activists in Indigenous communities in both the US and Canada have fought to bring awareness to the connection between sex trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and the women who go missing and are murdered.