A local Indigenous leader Thursday at a U.S. congressional hearing highlighting the neglected crisis of missing and murdered Black, brown and Indigenous women and relatives, challenging lawmakers to remove barriers to solving these cases.
Angel Charley, a member of Laguna Pueblo and the Navajo Nation, is the executive director of the Albuquerque-based . She spoke before the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in its hearing,
鈥淥ur organization knows that it鈥檚 not if a Native woman will experience violence in her lifetime, but it鈥檚 when,鈥� Charley told the panel.
New Mexico has of MMIWR cases in the country, and more than four out of every five Indigenous women will experience violence in their lifetime, according to
Charley says that, while some progress has been made, bureaucracy continues to stand in the way of access to resources, support, justice and healing.
鈥淚t is the complexity of jurisdiction, the historic lack of funding and systemic racism that continue to fuel the crisis on MMIW,鈥� she said.
She called out disparate treatment of Native women by law enforcement and media, and called on lawmakers to follow through on increasing funding, enacting , and reauthorizing , which includes an expansion of tribal jurisdiction.
And in the absence of those steps, she reminded the panel, 鈥渢hat it is our communities that are left filling in the gaps of the system.鈥�
In New Mexico, that means families and advocates often invest their own time and money in pursuing answers and justice in now-cold cases.
