Michigan’s Attorney General said her office is joining Indigenous tribes to better understand and reduce violence against Indigenous people, announcing the creation of the Missing or Murdered Indigenous People Task Force on Friday.
The task force is a coalition of law enforcement and advocates across several levels of government. That includes tribes in Michigan that have already been providing resources for victims of violence and their families.
Such resources didn’t always exist, said Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis, an advocate for survivors of domestic violence.
“It was just our own relatives saying ‘this is wrong’ and finding ways to look for our murdered and missing and trying to take care of our own communities,” she said.
Pilgrim-Lewis works for Uniting Three Fires Against Violence, an organization that supports tribes across the state in reducing violence against Indigenous people.
Homicide rates for Native American people are almost four times higher than for non-Hispanic white people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The task force plans to improve how law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute cases of missing or murdered Indigenous people in Michigan.
They’ll also study why Indigenous people in Michigan – "particularly women, children, and two-spirit people" – are vulnerable to violence.
One of the biggest challenges is reminding non-Indigenous people that Native Americans still exist, Pilgrim-Lewis said.
“We’re so invisible,” she said. “The lack of knowledge that Indigenous people exist and what the history is creates a huge barrier in our ability to address [the issue].”
So far, the attorney general is doing a good job, Pilgrim-Lewis said.
“I'm really excited that they're doing the project, and I'm so hopeful that it will find some solutions,” she said. “Because if you want to know what the solutions are, you ask the people who are most impacted, and they are asking the people who are most impacted.”
