Q: I’ve seen a train car stop through Manhattan that has the initials MMIW spray painted across its side. What does this mean?
A: Someone apparently wanted to bring attention to the violence that happens to Indigenous women by spray-painting a train car.
The train car you’re asking about sits on the tracks that run parallel to East Poyntz Avenue across from Faith Furniture. It has the words “No more stolen sisters” and “M.M.I.W.,” which stands for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. The tracks are Union Pacific Railroad tracks. We don’t know who spray-painted the car; the symbols appear to be graffiti.
MMIW is an initiative that originated from a group called Native Women’s Wilderness, a nonprofit based in Boulder, Colorado. The group seeks to bring attention to the disproportionate rates at which Indigenous women are victims of violence and human trafficking.
A 2016 National Institute of Justice report estimated more than 56% of American Indian or Alaska Native American women will experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, and they are murdered at a rate 10 times the national average. Homicide also is one of the top leading causes of death for Indigenous women, according to a 2017 Centers for Disease Control report.
A gap in communication and coordination between tribal, state and local law enforcement makes it difficult to investigate, much less prosecute, these cases, said Native Womens Wilderness, a nonprofit organization highlighting native women voices.
Sarah Deer, a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas and citizen of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, said during a speech at K-State’s 2019 Indigenous People’s Day Conference that this violence against Indigenous women has been an ongoing problem, but it wasn’t until the late 20th century and early 21st century that the U.S. federal government began to address the issue.
Deer said part of the problem is the federal government chipping away at the sovereignty of tribal nations to address violence against Native women, and crime in general.
The Major Crimes Act of 1885, which is still in effect today, gave the federal government the power to prosecute on Native reservations; the Indian Civil Rights Act told tribal courts they could not sentence someone to more than one year in prison and could impose a fine of up to $500 for any crime; and the 1978 Supreme Court case Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe ruled that tribes could not prosecute non-Native people for crimes.
Deer said more recent legislation has improved these prospects, but more work must still be done.
The Tribal Law and Order Act passed in 2010 allowed tribes to sentence people to up to three years in prison per offense, and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 gave tribes the ability to prosecute non-Native Americans, but only for cases of domestic violence.
In Kansas, Rep. Ponka-We Victors, D-Wichita, introduced a bill earlier this year that would require the Kansas attorney general to create training guidelines with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center about how to coordinate a response to cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Though it passed the House, the proposed legislation died on the Senate floor in May.
The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center has filed an amicus brief on each federal Supreme Court case related to violence against Indigenous women, telling the justices the implications their ruling may have on Indigenous people.
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