There's a disturbing pattern of missing and murdered indigenous women throughout North America. In 2015, a quarter of all murdered Canadian women were indigenous, and we're less than 5 percent of the population. It can be difficult to tally the number of missing or assaulted indigenous women in North America, but, in the United States, the National Institute of Justice reports that over half of Native women have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, and 38 percent were unable to receive victim services. These issues are closely linked: It seems that it's easy to hurt Native women, and easy to make us disappear.
The issue is a personal one for me. I've seen families in states of emergency, searching for their loved ones and begging for authorities to act faster. I've heard families of a missing girl discuss their frustration with what they describe as impossible red tape. These people are part of an extended community of First Nations people where I'm from.
I lived most of my life on a small Indian reserve called Seabird Island in British Columbia, Canada. Next to that reserve is Chawathil First Nation, where many of my childhood friends live and work. The community is tight-knit, so when 29-year-old Chawathil community member Shawnee Morita Inyallie went missing a month ago, everyone I knew there was concerned.
[For more on this story by TERESE MARIE MAILHOT, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...en-keep-disappearing]
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