Bill Creating Task Force On Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women Receives 2nd Hearing
Today, a bipartisan bill that would create a Governor’s Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women received a second hearing before the Minnesota House Public Safety Committee. The bill is chief-authored by State Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein (DFL-New Brighton) in collaboration with members of the DFL Native American Caucus.
The bill received support from the bipartisan group of legislators on the committee, and will be considered for inclusion in an omnibus Public Safety bill. It seeks to address the nationwide problem of Native women being victims of violent crime. In some regions of Minnesota, Native women are murdered at rates that are more than 10 times the national average.
Rep. Kunesh-Podein first called for a Governor’s task force in March to exclusively address the endemic crisis of missing and murdered Native women in Minnesota. Nationwide, Native women suffer from violence at a rate two and a half times greater than any other group.
“The violence against our Indigenous women is staggering and heartbreaking,” says Rep. Kunesh-Podein. “These are our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our aunts, our colleagues, and our neighbors. These women are Minnesotans and we are failing to protect them. No family should watch a loved one walk out the door and not know if they will see them again.”
Currently, there is no system in place to collect comprehensive data on missing and murdered Native women in Minnesota. The task force will cost less than $200,000 for the first two years of coordination with the Commissioner of Public Safety, state, tribal, federal, and non-governmental agencies to develop appropriate methods for tracking and collecting data including better providing a better definition to the coordinated efforts to end the violence against Indigenous women.
The task force will provide analysis regarding the systemic causes behind the number of missing Native American women in the state to law enforcement, policymakers and the public.
The task force will report annually to the legislature, providing recommendations to reduce and end violence against Indigenous women and girls in Minnesota, including any proposed legislation that may be needed to confront the problem. When Rep. Kunesh-Podein’s proposed legislation is signed into law, the task force could go into effect as early as October of this year.
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