WASHINGTON — Parents detailed their frustrating attempts to get law enforcement attention and proper media coverage at a congressional hearing Thursday on missing and murdered women of color.
“This is a crisis hidden in plain sight,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Liberties.
Advocates told lawmakers about the struggle of not having complete and accurate data to fully understand the scope of missing women of color because the federal government doesn’t collect that data. In 2020, 40% of women and girls reported missing were black, despite making up 16% of the population, according to the US census.
“The missing people of color epidemic is not a new issue, it’s one that has been dismissed because society doesn’t care about us,” said Shawn Wilkinson of Baltimore.
Wilkinson’s daughter Akia was eight months pregnant when she disappeared in 2017. He told lawmakers law enforcement didn’t take the case seriously until a month later and no baby was born at a nearby hospital.
Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Maryland Democrat, expressed frustration at the way Akia’s case was handled and at the lack of media coverage of her disappearance.
“We must keep reminding people of the breadth and scale of this problem in our country,” he said.
Natalie Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, said that “race is clearly an underlying factor in the differences in these missing persons cases,” as is the media coverage that follows when a person goes missing.
The Black and Missing Foundation is a Maryland-based nonprofit organization that raises awareness of missing people of color across the country.
She pointed to examples of missing white women that have made national and international headlines, such as Natalee Holloway, Gabby Petito and Chandra Levy.
Wilson said it was a struggle to highlight the depth of the problem without accurate or reliable data.
One problem she and her attorneys have encountered is when black girls are reported missing, law enforcement will typically classify them as runaways. She said 9 out of 10 missing girls are reported as runaways, which was the case reported by USA Today. If a child is determined to be a runaway, police do not issue Amber Alerts or assemble the resources needed to locate a missing person.
“Black and brown girls aren’t seen as victims and often they grow up,” Wilson said. “So the perception is that whatever happens to them, they deserve it.”
The top GOP lawmaker on the panel, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, said she was concerned about the high levels of intimate partner violence faced by women of color, as well as the sex trafficking of black girls.
“I’m particularly interested in what strategies we should adopt to improve access to education and economic opportunities for all women to reduce their vulnerability and risk of being targeted by criminals,” she said.
Mace was the only Republican on the panel to show up for the hearing. GOP lawmakers on the panel include Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Pete Sessions of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and C. Franklin and Byron Donalds of Florida.
Mace said she’s concerned about the issue because women, particularly black women and girls, have been disappearing in her own district. She asked the GOP witness how the pandemic had affected women and girls of color.
“Lockdowns early in the pandemic led to an 8% increase in domestic violence,” said Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women’s Forum.
She called for more funding for law enforcement to direct resources for missing persons cases and for looking at life at home to help “prevent people from disappearing in the first place.”
When it comes to law enforcement’s role in missing tribal women, tribal officials are in a bind. Tribal officials are generally not permitted to do so bring charges against those who are not Native Americans but commit crimes on tribal lands.
Angel Charley, the executive director of the New Mexico-based Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, said families in Indian Country often shoulder the burden of searching for their missing family members.
Charley is from the Pueblo of Laguna Pueblo.
Angel Charley, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, testifies at a congressional hearing on missing and murdered black women. (screenshot)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, asked Charley about the connection between “fossil fuel extraction and abductions and murders of indigenous women in the United States.”
“Many tribes have no jurisdiction over non-native offenders, which is the majority of these oil workers,” Charley said. “We know that when these men’s camps or temporary facilities are created, violence and especially sexual violence against our local women will increase.”
Charley pleaded with lawmakers to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which includes several tribal provisions that would “expand the oversight and therefore protection of our women and children.” The US House of Representatives passed the Reauthorization Act last year, but the Senate did not.
Pamela Foster, a Navajo from the Navajo Nation, told lawmakers how Two of their children were kidnapped on their reservation at the bus stop. Their 9-year-old daughter, Ashlynne, and 11-year-old son, Ian, were taken miles from the reservation and while her son escaped, her daughter was murdered.
Foster said law enforcement couldn’t issue a yellow alert, and she said local law enforcement only began searching for her daughter when her son was found straying by a passerby.
“Because the (kidnapping) took place on the reservation, the resources I needed were not available for her to begin the search,” she said. “It took her death to start anything.”
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