Raising Awareness of Missing and Murdered Native Women

“I’m horrified but I’m letting that horror drive me to keep pushing, to keep raising awareness so that people understand what is happening to our native women, all the way up in Canada, down to the United States.” – Molly Ryan – Kills Enemy

Native Women are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of violence and sexual assault. In August, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, appointed an inquiry commission to study the cases of more than 1,000 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada. Now activists in the US are raising awareness about the rise in rape and violence against Native women in the US related to energy extraction.

KGNU’s Jennifer Murnane spoke with Molly Ryan – Kills Enemy, a full blood, un-enrolled, Sicangu, Lakota Winyan who is working to raise awareness about the murdered and missing native women, and the escalation in sexual violence against these women.

“The threat of these man camps that come in with these pipelines…it’s the industrial workers that come in with this mindset that it’s ok to buy women for sex, it’s ok to abuse them for sex. And the ages range from babies, toddlers, all the way up to grandmas.”

Kills Enemy says she was inspired to keep raising awareness about this issue by a video taken recently at a protest in Iowa. “It was a man asking the mother of a daughter, how much for the little girl? I have daughters and my self…and we come from domestic violence and we’ve healed. And so to hear those words, it disgusted me and angered me and I don’t want that to happen to our children. It’s very sickening to think that people have the mindset that it’s OK to rape young girls, that it’s OK to rape babies. I’m horrified but I’m letting that horror drive me to keep pushing, to keep raising awareness so that people understand what is happening to our native women, all the way up in Canada, down to the United States. It’s starting to become rampant.”

Raising Awareness of Missing and Murdered Native Women KGNU News

On Sunday October 23rd , there will be two solidarity actions for the Missing and Murdered Native Women. From noon to 3pm in Denver on the 16th street mall, starting with a short prayer ceremony at the state capitol and in Boulder at noon at the corner of Broadway and Arapahoe. Supporters are invited to come dressed in black and act as protectors for the women.