Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Monday that he is working with Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Anacortes, to propose a bill in the next legislative session to create an alert in Washington state to help identify and locate missing Indigenous women and people.
“The rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Washington is a crisis,” Ferguson said. “We must do everything we can to address this problem. This effective tool will help quickly and safely locate missing Indigenous women and people.”
The alert, similar to “silver alerts” for missing vulnerable adults, will broadcast information about missing Indigenous people on message signs and in highway advisory radio messages when activated, as well as through press releases to local and regional media, according to a news release from the Attorney General’s Office. The bill is House Bill 1725.
This will be the first alert system specifically for missing and murdered Indigenous women and people in the country, according to the news release.
“The unheard screams of missing and murdered people will be heard across Washington state with the implementation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Alert System,” said Lekanoff. “Too many Indigenous mothers, sisters, wives and daughters have been torn from their families and their children raised without mothers. This crisis impacts every one of our families and communities and it takes collaboration among all governing bodies, law enforcement and media to bring awareness and stop these horrific crimes.”
Indigenous women and people go missing and are murdered at rates higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, according to the news release. In Washington, more than four times as many Indigenous women go missing than white women, according to research conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.
Washington is one of 37 states with a “silver alert” system for missing vulnerable adults. States that report data on “silver alerts” report a high success rate, with Wisconsin reporting a 96% success rate for locating missing vulnerable adults with its silver alert system during its first three years (180 of 188 vulnerable adults located) and Texas reporting a 92% success rate during the first year of its silver alert system (48 of 52 missing vulnerable adults located safely), according to the news release.
The bill is designated as an “Attorney General Request” bill, which is a formal designation for bills proposed by the Attorney General’s Office. Since 2013, 27 Attorney General Request bills have been signed into law.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force
The Attorney General’s Office facilitates the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, a 23-member task force created by the state Legislature as part of the effort to coordinate a statewide response to the urgent crisis of Indigenous people who go missing, are the victims of homicide or experience other types of gender-based violence in urban and tribal communities, according to the news release.
Lekanoff is a member of the task force’s executive committee.
“Tribes, community members and grassroots activists have done substantial work to identify current challenges regarding data, reporting practices, causes of violence, investigations, prosecutions and direct services that impact the rates of violence against tribal and urban Indigenous communities,” said the news release. “ The task force will build on these efforts to address barriers and provide recommendations to the Legislature to close these gaps.”
The task force will assess the systemic causes that contribute to disproportionate rates of violence, provide recommendations for addressing barriers and review data collection and reporting protocols. Recognizing that tribal boundaries and communities have extended far beyond contemporary borders, the task force will also address how the surrounding states and Canada are impacted by the jurisdictional and data gaps, said the news release. For more information on the task force, visit https://www.atg.wa.gov/washington-state-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-people-task-force.
