Prayer Vigil for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
The Global Indigenous Council says there were thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States in just 2016.
DULUTH, Minn. – Missing and murdered Indigenous women were honored on Sunday at a prayer vigil underneath a newly installed billboard bringing awareness to those women.
The Global Indigenous Council says there were thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States in just 2016.
The billboard is at the corner of Garfield Avenue and Superior Street.
The prayer vigil was followed by a march to Duluth Folk School where speakers talked to dozens of people about how important it is for the community to work together to prevent more women and girls in the Indigenous community from disappearing.
“Today was very important for me because I like educating people about our issues especially the outside community because sometimes we don’t have those connections in the way that we should to be able to inform everybody about what goes on,” said Millie Richard, a community elder and spiritual leader who wore the name of her sister who went missing and died in 1995 on her shirt.
The city of Duluth’s Human Rights Officer was one of the speakers.
He said raising boys to grow up to be men who respect girls and women is a key to actively solving the societal issue.
“It is so important that we as men take the time to talk to young men and boys about violence about domestic violence and how in most cases we are the ones that perpetrate this violence. So understanding the root of it so then if we do that we may have an opportunity of ending this epidemic in our community,” said Carl Crawford the Human Rights Officer in Duluth.
The missing and murdered indigenous women vigil and billboard committee is also encouraging increased support of a bill going through Minnesota state senate which would create a task force to address the issue of native women missing and murdered.
