“The numbers are staggering. Our women and girls are being taken from us in an alarming way. Our women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than other ethnicities and it’s the third leading cause of death for our Women (Centers for Disease Control). The majority of these murders are committed by non-Native people on Native-owned land. Because of the lack of communication between state, local, and tribal law enforcement, it’s difficult to begin the investigation process. ” (1)

Indigenous women are being assaulted and murdered in North America at an alarming rate. Many of these attacks have been caused by transient workers in industrial driven housing units placed near or on tribal land by Big Business. As of today, many of the murders are unsolved cases and many of the victims and their family have not seen justice. Some claim because they are women of color, minorities and Indian, the law enforcement and government are doing very little to stop these attacks.

Read the following articles:

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: A Snapshot from 71 urban cities in the USA
https://www.uihi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Missing-and-Murdered-Indigenous-Women-and-Girls-Report.pdf
MMIWG2S

The Tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW)
https://www.powwows.com/the-tragedy-of-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw/
Addressing the Epidemic of Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/addressing-epidemic-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls
Universe of Obligation
After WWII, “diplomats and politicians created not only the United Nations as an international organization, but also the Nuremberg Trials, the Genocide Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the hope of preventing future atrocities. Each of these initiatives aimed to redefine the responsibilities of all governments and individuals toward other people in the world; they required a shift in the way people and nations understand what sociologist Helen Fein calls their “universe of obligation.” Fein defines this important concept as the circle of individuals and groups “toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for [amends].” (2)

Essay Directions:

In 1976, the mutilated body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian activist, was found on a South Dakota ranch. It took more than 25 years for her killer to be discovered. Anna Mae’s murder made national news because of her involvement in the Indian civil rights movement. Her goal was to improve the lives of indigenous people in America and Canada. (3)
Anna Mae was not the first or the last indigenous woman to be slain after speaking out to protect her people or to gain civil rights.
In your essay, discuss the American Indian civil rights history and the historical processes since 1960s, and explain what events have led indigenous people to fight legally for protection and to try to prevent violence against Native American women.