Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Citizen Detective Resources

May 5, marks the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). This sobering event is a reminder that indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average. What’s more, data deserts prevent accurate tracking of these statistics and likely further undercount the indigenous population, putting them further at risk of being underrepresented in the media, the community, and the justice system.

Be an advocate and an ally for the murdered and missing

Take action during the 2021 National Week of Action for MMIWG—and beyond!

Working with case researchers and the Purdue Forensic Science Club, we’ve visualized the cases of 13 indigenous women and girls whose families are still searching for answers—a small fraction of cases that can use your help. Know their stories and help keep them in the media, with attention on them to uncover answers in their cases:

Visit these case pages and help crowdsource gaps in the public timelines. As we mentioned, many of the cases, including MMIW get little to no media attention. Your help to piece together details can help uncover answers. Using your personal network to share these cases with others keeps their stories in the public and will help lead to more information.

MMIW Toolkit

Specialty resources from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center designed to assist families, communities, and advocacy organizations in understanding and responding to a case of a missing or murdered Native woman.

Listen, learn, and more

Podcasts are a great place to hear stories and accounts firsthand. Journalist Connie Walker has recently released the serial podcast Stolen: The Search for Jermain. This series follows the case of the still-unsolved disappearance of Jermain Charlo in Missoula, Montana; and shines a light on the fact that indigenous people are four times more likely to go missing in the state of Montana.

Also, be sure to check out The Red Justice Project. This podcast works to bring awareness to the many, many cases of missing and murdered indigenous people in North America. Their team has tackled several cases with empathy and thoughtful details to continue to spread awareness.

Members of our case research community are hard at work visualizing more and more cases for great impact. Your feedback and interactions are critical to this work. If you want to take your advocacy to the next level for these cases and the over 200,000 unsolved cases of the missing and murdered, consider joining our community.

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