Navajo woman walks across the country to raise awareness about missing indigenous people

[summer_in_TX]

9. In 2018 I got invited to be part of a panel at the UN Conference

on the status of women.

While waiting on my event to start, my husband and I happened into the session on the status of indigenous women. It was eye-opening for us Texans where tribal peoples were usually subsumed into the Latino population or marginalized to just three recognized reservations far from where I grew up (in Austin).

The level of indifference that they documented enduring at the hands of law enforcement and governmental officials to the endemic violence directed at indigenous women was horrific. The presenters were survivors, some of whom had managed to get Masters degrees and study the issues involved in the hopes of making things better for their community.

Some had themselves been raped and all had members of their families who had been raped, beaten, or murdered. Almost never were the perpetrators caught or held accountable. The northern midwestern states, including Michigan and Minnesota seemed to have a darkness that as white people we'd never heard about before.

There's a lot of awareness that needs to be raised. Good for Ms. Warren!