Minnesota Creates Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office

<p>Tiffany Bui</p><p><br></p><p>After years of trying to raise attention for missing and murdered Indigenous women, advocates have scored a key win. </p><p><br></p><p>This past legislative session, Minnesota lawmakers allocated $500,000 for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office, which will focus not just on women and girls, but men, boys and the Two Spirit community.</p><p><br></p><p>The move comes after the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women task force released its report in December 2020, which named the creation of the office as the top priority. For Senator Mary Kunesh, it was important to ensure their findings wouldn’t “sit on a shelf and gather dust.” </p><p><br></p><p>“If there is legislation that needs to be done in order to address any of these issues … we can do it easier and quicker through the task force or through the permanent office,” Kunesh said. “And so it's all about accountability, and the ability to do the work that needs to be done.”</p><p><br></p><p>Simply understanding the true scope of the problem is among the office’s bevy of priorities. </p><p>Data collection on missing Indigenous people is often scattered or incomplete, and may incorrectly identify a Native person’s race, according to the task force report. Government efforts to comprehensively track missing and murdered Indigenous people have historically been sparse. Instead, researchers must piece together information about missing persons from a variety of state and national databases. </p><p><br></p><p>To address this issue, Kunesh said the new office will create a data dashboard that draws from multiple sources. With a more complete overview, the office could track what impact new programs and systemic changes have on missing persons statistics, she said. </p><p><br></p><p>The office will also investigate cold cases and explore ways to prevent disappearances and murders in the Indigenous community. According to the report, Indigenous women and girls make up about 1% of Minnesota’s population but