Madison Eagle gives the “Falling Through the Cracks: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women” talk in the Alonso Family Room of the Center for Belonging and Social Change in the Ohio Union. Credit: Carter Kohli | Lantern Reporter
The Center for Belonging and Social Change hosted a presentation Wednesday in the Ohio Union to educate students on the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Titled “Falling Through the Cracks: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,” the talk, which was presented by Madison Eagle, coordinator for belonging and student support in the center, focused on the history of missing and murdered Indigenous women from colonial settlement to modern day, its impact on Indigenous communities and the activism currently in action to bring an end to it.
Eagle said it is important to talk about difficult and uncomfortable issues like the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women to foster change.
“It’s when we don’t talk about them that we create divisiveness and being uncomfortable is where growth can really happen and where we can learn more about ourselves and about other people and other cultures,” Eagle said.
According to Eagle, statistics show Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the national average, with murder being the third leading cause of death among them. More than 4 out of every 5 Indigenous women has experienced violence, with 90% of the reported violence committed by non-Native perpetrators, Eagle said.
“And these are just the reported cases that we know about,” Eagle said. “Ninety percent had cases with an unknown status so there wasn’t a lot of data.”
Stories of Indigenous women who have recently gone missing or been murdered were shared in order to stress that the issue is presently impacting Indigenous communities, Eagle said.
Among the cases, Eagle said an estimated 40 deaths have occurred on the Highway of Tears, a 450-mile stretch of Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, since 1970.
Briana Walkup, a second-year in psychology and vice president of the Native American and Indigenous Peoples Cohort student organization at Ohio State, which worked to organize and bring awareness to the talk, said the violence and murder of Indigenous women is an issue that impacts the whole Indigenous community and is often overlooked by those outside of it.
“We’re tired of our relatives going missing and being murdered at such high rates and people just not knowing that’s even a problem in the first place,” Walkup said.
She said she hopes the event helps to increase Native visibility on campus.
“It’s about making sure that we’re bridging out to the larger OSU community as well and just really getting our passions, our interests and the issues that are facing us out there so that we aren’t going by invisibly anymore,” Walkup said.
Eagle began by giving an overview of the “complicated,” “nuanced” and “political” identities tribal nations and Indigenous people are forced to navigate. This includes 574 federally recognized tribes.
“It’s really important to recognize the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, especially when talking about the issues that we’re facing,” Eagle said.
Eagle said colonialism had profound impacts on Indigenous women by forcing Indigenous communities to change their gender roles from a flexible and equal system to the hierarchical patriarchal European system.
Eagle said Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka and was a victim of sexual violence by English settlers, has been used as a propaganda piece to spread misinformation about Indigenous people — specifically women.
“There is a lot of history of violence dating back from Pocahontas and into the present day,” Eagle said.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, nonconsensual sterilization procedures were performed on Indigenous women through the government agency Indian Health Services, and it is estimated that approximately 25% of Native American women were sterilized without their consent, Eagle said.
Eagle said this instance of medical racism has led Indigenous peoples to be less likely to seek medical care out of distrust for the system.
“A lot of Indigenous people avoid going to the doctor and will avoid seeking treatment even for serious things, and it’s because they don’t trust the doctors there,” Eagle said.
Eagle said Indigenous women simultaneously experience multiple forms of discrimination due to their intersectional identity.
This has created an environment where Indigenous women are particularly victimized and systemically racist policies have prevented or hindered data and information collection, thus making it harder to advocate for change, Eagle said.
“It’s really important to recognize that there is sexism, misogyny at play, there is racism at play, but there’s also colonialism as well,” Eagle said.
Eagle said that cultures and tribes have traditionally recognized more than two genders, generally known by the term two-spirit; the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples includes members of the community who identify outside of the gender binary.
“It’s really important to make sure that we name their stories and name that they were humans and they were important and they live beautiful lives,” Eagle said.
Eagle said facets of activism including “National Day of Awareness” on May 5 and the “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement,” are helping to bring awareness to the issue. Legislation such as The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and Not Invisible Act of 2019 have also helped pave the way for progress, Eagle said.
Ileia Wou, a second-year in psychology and co-president of SHADES, a student organization for LGBTQ+ students of color, said she and other members of the group came to the talk to support SHADES members who are part of the Indigenous community, celebrate women’s month and learn more about missing people in Indigenous communities.
“We just wanted to be a bit more knowledgeable and we wanted to learn a bit more about it,” Wou said.
Akasha Lancaster, a second-year in psychology and co-president of SHADES, said they knew the issue was not covered enough, but were still surprised to learn just how many Indigenous women are missing or murdered. They said they were also interested to learn how Indigenous women use running as a form of activism.
“It’s a cool and different way to do activism,” they said.
Eagle said she has hope for the future, as activism makes headway and Indigenous leaders, such as Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland — a member of the Pueblo of Laguna — hold government positions that can help address the needs of Indigenous communities.
“I hope that we continue moving in a positive way to represent and honor Indigenous missing and murdered Indigenous relatives,” Eagle said.
