Today is May 5. It is not an ordinary day. It’s a day when we stop. We remember. We reckon.
Across North America, red dresses sway from tree branches, overpasses, and doorways. These are quiet witnesses to a crisis that never had to happen. It has gone on far too long and garnered far too little attention.
This is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). This solemn day is a time set aside to honor the lives stolen by violence, neglect, and systemic indifference.
For decades, Indigenous families have sounded the alarm: their daughters, mothers, sisters, and aunties are disappearing and dying at staggering rates. Many simply disappear, never to be found. In some tribal communities, Indigenous women face murder rates more than ten times the national average.
Let that sink in.
Recent data underscores the severity of this crisis. As of 2024, the Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates approximately 4,200 missing and murdered cases involving American Indian and Alaska Native individuals remain unsolved in the United States.
In Canada, between 2009 and 2021, Indigenous women and girls made up 2% to 3% of the population yet represented 5% to 7% of homicide victims.
These statistics are not just numbers; they represent mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends whose lives were cut short, and whose families continue to seek justice.
Yet we hear too little about it.
This isn’t just a failure of policing. It’s a failure of humanity. And while there’s no single explanation, we know some of the reasons:
- Jurisdictional loopholes between tribal, state, and federal authorities
- Racial bias and underreporting in media and law enforcement
- Centuries of colonization that have eroded protections, rights, and trust
- A lack of data, coordination, and urgency
But perhaps the most haunting reason is the one survivors and families know too well: too few people care—until it’s their child.
Today, I want to say to Indigenous families: I see you. I hear you. I believe you.
As a homicide survivor myself, I understand the anguish of unanswered questions, of birthdays spent at gravesites, of searching faces in crowds that you know you’ll never find. But this? This crisis of thousands of women vanishing with little public outrage—that’s something none of us should accept.
Here are faces of just a few of the recent missing and unsolved homicides.
We must do better.
We must support legislation that strengthens tribal sovereignty and closes jurisdictional gaps.
We must amplify Indigenous voices and center their leadership in every conversation about justice.
We must educate ourselves and others—not just on May 5, but every day.
So if you see a red dress today, don’t just walk by. Ask why it’s there. Then carry that answer with you. Let it inform your actions, your advocacy, and your empathy.
Because remembering is not enough. Not anymore.
