A crisis ignored: Why are people turning a blind eye to missing Indigenous women?

About one million people make up the population of Montana, of that about 6.7% are Indigenous people. But despite the small population Indigenous people make up about 26% of the missing person cases in the state; the majority of those numbers being overwhelmingly female. And it's not unique to Montana. Other states with Indigenous populations report high instances as well. According to a Department of Justice report on missing and murdered Indigenous women in Montana, a 2018 investigation by the Associated Press stated “…nobody knows precisely how cases of missing and murdered Native American women happen nationwide because many cases go unreported, others aren't well-documented and no government database specifically tracks them.”

Why is this? And why don't we hear more about these cases?

The team at 5 Things spoke to Great Falls Tribune reporter Nora Mabie about this crisis. She talks about the dynamics involved in various law enforcement agencies and jurisdiction as well as something called 'missing white woman syndrome.'

For more on this story, click here.

For more about Cheryl Horn, a USA TODAY woman of the year and what she is doing to help missing and murdered Indigenous women, click here. 

To follow James Brown on Twitter, click here.

To follow Nora Mabie on Twitter, click here.

Episode Transcript available here

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