Post by Admin on Mar 12, 2024 22:12:54 GMT
Portraits in RED: The ‘Silent Crisis’ Facing Indigenous Women
Native women are murdered at rates 10 times the national average.
www.truthdig.com/articles/portraits-in-red-the-silent-crisis-facing-indigenous-women/
Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind was eight months pregnant in August 2017 when neighbor Brooke Crews asked for help on a sewing project. Having been neighbors for a while, 22-year-old Savanna felt comfortable enough to enter Crews’ apartment. After she did, Savanna was shoved to the floor and knocked unconscious; Crews performed a C-section, stole the newborn baby and discarded Savanna’s body in the Red River, where it was found by kayakers eight days later.
The tragedy inspired the 2020 Savanna’s Act, signed into law to “improve the federal response to missing or murdered Indigenous persons.” Savanna was a member of the Spirit Lake Sioux, making her tragic end emblematic of a much larger, silent crisis.
According to a report by the Urban Indian Health Institute, cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women are grossly underreported for a number of reasons, including poor record-keeping protocols, institutional racism in the media and poor relationships between law enforcement agencies and Indigenous communities. The statistics we do have are sobering: One in three Native women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Native women are murdered at rates 10 times the national average and have a lower life expectancy— according to Statista, the life expectancy of Native people in 2021 was 65.2 years, while the average life expectancy for the U.S. population overall was 76.1 years.
Native women are murdered at rates 10 times the national average.
www.truthdig.com/articles/portraits-in-red-the-silent-crisis-facing-indigenous-women/
Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind was eight months pregnant in August 2017 when neighbor Brooke Crews asked for help on a sewing project. Having been neighbors for a while, 22-year-old Savanna felt comfortable enough to enter Crews’ apartment. After she did, Savanna was shoved to the floor and knocked unconscious; Crews performed a C-section, stole the newborn baby and discarded Savanna’s body in the Red River, where it was found by kayakers eight days later.
The tragedy inspired the 2020 Savanna’s Act, signed into law to “improve the federal response to missing or murdered Indigenous persons.” Savanna was a member of the Spirit Lake Sioux, making her tragic end emblematic of a much larger, silent crisis.
According to a report by the Urban Indian Health Institute, cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women are grossly underreported for a number of reasons, including poor record-keeping protocols, institutional racism in the media and poor relationships between law enforcement agencies and Indigenous communities. The statistics we do have are sobering: One in three Native women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Native women are murdered at rates 10 times the national average and have a lower life expectancy— according to Statista, the life expectancy of Native people in 2021 was 65.2 years, while the average life expectancy for the U.S. population overall was 76.1 years.