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Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
"In June 2019, the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its final report, which received widespread news coverage in the United States," Project Censored notes. "U.S. corporate news outlets have provided nearly nothing in the way of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States."

That's despite a problem of similar dimensions, and complexity, along with the election of the first two Native American congresswomen, Deb Haaland (who's since been nominated as Biden's Secretary of the Interior) and Sharice Davids, who, Ms. Magazine reported, "are supporting two bills that would address the federal government's failure to track and respond to violence against Indigenous women [and] are supported by a mass movement in the U.S. and Canada raising an alarm about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG)."

Four in five Native women experience violence at some time in their lives, according to a 2016 survey by the National Institute of Justice, cited in an August 2019 Think Progress report.

"About nine in 10 Native American rape or sexual-assault victims had assailants who were white or Black," according to a 1999 Justice Department report.

"Although the number of Native Americans murdered or missing in 2016 exceeded 3,000—roughly the number of people who died during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack—the Justice Department's missing persons database logged only 116 cases that year," Think Progress noted. "The sheer scale of the violence against Native women and the abysmal failure by the government to adequately address it, explains why the issue was given such prominence during this week's presidential candidates' forum in Sioux City—the first to focus entirely on Native American issues."

• Sarah Arnoff

But even that didn't grab media attention.

There are multiple complicating factors in reporting, tracking, investigating and prosecuting, which were explored in coverage by The Guardian and Yes! Magazine, as well as Ms. and Think Progress.

"Campaigners, including the Sovereign Bodies Institute, the Brave Heart Society and the Urban Indian Health Institute, identify aspects of systemic racism—including the indelible legacies of settler colonialism, issues with law enforcement, a lack of reliable and comprehensive data, and flawed policymaking—as deep-rooted sources of the crisis," Project Censored summed up. "As YES! Magazine reported, tribal communities in the United States often lack jurisdiction to respond to crimes."

This was partially remedied in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, known as VAWA, but "it left sex trafficking and other forms of sexual violence outside tribal jurisdiction, YES! Magazine reported."

The House voted to expand tribal jurisdiction in such cases in its 2019 VAWA reauthorization, but, Ms. reported, "The bill is now languishing in the Senate, where Republicans have so far blocked a vote."

Another facet of the problem explored by Yes! is the connection between the extractive fossil fuel industry and violence against Native women. The Canadian report "showed a strong link between extraction zones on the missing and murdered women crisis in Canada," Yes! noted. "It specifically cited rotational shift work, sexual harassment in the workplace, substance abuse, economic insecurity and a largely transient workforce as contributing to increased violence against Native women in communities near fossil fuel infrastructure."

"It creates this culture of using and abuse," said Annita Lucchesi, executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute. "If you can use and abuse the water and land, you can use and abuse the people around you, too."

Project Censored concluded, "As a result of limited news coverage, the United States is far from a national reckoning on its crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls."

Utahns know more than most
While it's true that the story has been grossly underreported on a national level, Utahns have benefited from broader coverage, thanks to the efforts of local media—including two cover features in City Weekly and features by Report for America corps member Zak Podmore and others in The Salt Lake Tribune. Thanks to such media accounts and the vital work of activists, nonprofits, state leaders, lawmakers and even the Trump administration, efforts are now underway to better track these cases locally. State Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored a 2020 bill creating a task force to address how the state can respond to MMIWG issues. This was after President Trump created a federal task force on the issue in late 2019. Romero also sponsored a resolution that made May 5 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and LGBT+ Awareness Day.