Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) is a human rights disaster most notably affecting indigenous women of Canada and the United States. Data indicates that Indigenous people are disproportionately likely to disappear or be murdered, compared to other populations.
Beyond simply disappearing or being killed, indigenous women face other forms of violence at catastrophic levels. The Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI) of Seattle surveyed 148 Indigenous women, with 94% of respondents saying they had been raped or coerced into sex in their lifetimes. More than half (53%) were without permanent housing, while 34% said they binge drank on a daily or weekly basis following their initial attack. Regarding first-time rape cases, just 8% ended in conviction, and 86% of respondents said they were affected by historical trauma.
In 2016, another report by UIHI detailed missing and murdered people case numbers by city nationwide. Seattle was the city with the most missing and murdered women and girls with 45 cases.
Washington state had the second highest number of cases at 71, following only New Mexico with 78 cases.
“Since 1492 our people have been getting abducted and through relocation, through genocide, through the reservations time after time our people have gone missing, and some of them have been murdered blatantly,” said Sicangu Lakota tribal member Mike Nadeau while attending Red Dress Day, an awareness raising event in Port Angeles on May 3.
Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Tlinget sisters Marciella Salazar and EmaLya Salazar hold sign in front of Elwha Klallam Heritage Center on May 3.
“The red represents that ever-long battle just to exist,” Nadeau said.
Lack of good data, complex jurisdictions
Challenges to addressing these issues are systemic, and the most referenced challenges include jurisdictional complexity and a lack of accurate numbers to pinpoint problems.
“There’s a lack of good reporting and without good data,” said Vicki Lowe, a member of the Washington State MMIP Task Force and Sequim city councilor.
“You can’t really understand the problem, but we know from our communities that women and people are going missing. Some of them never come back, and some of them come back having been victims of trafficking.”
An Urban Indian Health Institute report cites the National Crime Information Center, saying that 5,712 MMIWG cases were reported in 2016. Only 116 cases were logged in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the National Institute of Justice database.
Lower Elwha Klallam Chief of Police Sam White is the co-chair of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety subcommittee of the Washington State MMIWP Task Force.
“Not everybody reports the information the same across Washington State or across the nation. There are a huge number (of cases) that are unreported as well,” he said, speaking to the lacking uniformity and incomplete collection of data pertaining to MMIWP.
Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Cheyenne Wheeler holds a sign reading “NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS” on march from Elwha Cultural Heritage Center to Civic Field on May 3.
White also pointed out that Indigenous people have often been racially miscategorized, skewing the data even more: “A lot of times, natives aren’t categorized as natives.”
In addition, law enforcement agencies responsible for handling a given crime depend on a few variants: first the identity of the offender, next the identity of the victim, and finally whether or not the crime has been listed on the amended Major Crimes Act.
Depending on the identities of those involved in the crime, jurisdiction may be exclusively federal, or partially federal and partially tribal.
Non-tribal perpetrators, advocates note, often exploit jurisdictional gaps between reservations and surrounding land, limiting tribal law enforcement’s ability to respond.
Legislative efforts, MMIWP Task force
House Bill 2951, passed in 2018, ordered a survey to increase reporting and investigation of missing Indigenous women.
In a subsequent 2019 report, Urban Indian Health Institution of Seattle Director Abigail Echo-Hawk criticized the survey’s inadequacy: “Despite this direct mandate from the Washington State Legislature, the report was woefully incomplete.”
Later she wrote: “My greatest fear is other states using Washington as a model to address MMIWG. Mediocre work is being affirmed, which is how structural racism evolves and invisibility of missing and murdered native women increases.”
In 2022, the Washington State MMIWP Task Force was formed to create a wide response plan involving tribal, local, state, and federal agencies, in addition to relatives of missing and murdered people. Recent legislative measures reflect ongoing efforts to address the longstanding crisis and improve justice and protection for indigenous communities.
“The most important thing about the task force is that the work is really grounded in the families and the survivors,” Lowe said.
Each subcommittee in the task force has at least two family members of a missing or murdered Indigenous Person.
The task force has had direct involvement in each of the following bills.
House Bill 1725, passed in 2022, created a statewide alert system for missing Indigenous People (MIPA), improving information dissemination and recovery efforts.
“The one case that I did have was after a lot of the changes and because I have the relationships with the different people we were able to get our missing person back in a hurry,” White said. “I was able to call the FBI, they were able to do some follow-ups for me, we were able to network with other states, and other people and find our missing person. We were able to reach out across the state and track her down in Tukwila and the guy just basically dropped her off at a 7-11 in Tukwila and said, ‘come get her’ because there was so much pressure trying to find her.”
(Note: White declined to share the identity of this recovered missing person, out of respect for their family.)
House Bill 1177, passed in 2023, established a cold case investigations unit for murdered Indigenous Women and People.
Valerie Claplanhoo, a member of the Makah Tribe, was murdered in Sequim in 2019. After the establishment of the Cold Case Investigations Unit in 2024, the Sequim Police Department opened the case report to the unit. The Sequim Police Department is still the primary law enforcement agency on the investigation.
Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Sisters and Jamestown Sklallam members Sonni (left) and Jolie Creech of the Johnson family show their support for MMIP at the Civic Feild parking lot on May 3.
Senate Bill 6146, passed in 2023-24, provided pathways for tribal courts to serve warrants and extradite ‘tribal fugitives’ addressing jurisdictional issues at the court level.
White said he sees modest yet incomplete success over recent years. “As far as high-level stuff, it’s probably the best that tribes, the state, and the feds have worked together,” he said. “Where the problem comes is, at the high level there’s a lot of good communication [and] at the lower level, where the rubber meets the road, the information disseminating down, even to the changes that we have made to the law, doesn’t get all the way down to the average patrol guy across the state.”
Public awareness, involvement
Though MMIWP is not a new problem, the issue has been somewhat invisible to the wider public. Organizers have seen a necessity to drive up awareness.
In recent years, marches across Washington State, the United States and Canada have garnered increased media coverage, prompting more legislative attention to the issue.
On May 3 in Port Angeles, members from a range of tribes — including the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam, Lummi, Tlingit, Sicangu Lakota, and Blackfeet tribes among others — gathered at the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center to participate in Red Dress Day.
Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Sarah ‘Raven’ Thomas of the Tlinget tribe of Anchorage Alaska passes by Church of Nazarene in Port Angeles Red Dress Day march on May 3.
Red Dress Day is an awareness raising march for the MMIWP epidemic.
The group, comprised of both tribal people and non-tribal supporters planned to march from the Heritage Center to the Gateway Transit Center several blocks away.
As participants greeted each other, talked, and painted signs, news broke about a nearby bank shooting. Front Street in Port Angeles was shut down as multiple law enforcement agencies responded.
Plan in flux, participants continued preparing signs and talking together.
Arlene “Pebbles” Wheeler, Indian name Sut’ca, spoke about the purpose of the march: “It brings us together, it brings us solidarity, so that we know that our loved ones have never been forgotten. We try to bring awareness so that maybe in the future things will change.”
After discussions with Port Angeles city councilors, Mayor Kate Dexter, and the Elwha Police, leaders decided to proceed with the march but altered the route. The march would proceed along the north sidewalk of First Street from the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center to the parking lot below Civic Field.
The march, a display of community solidarity, saw eastbound traffic honking in support. Marchers dressed in red filled the sidewalk, lifting signs with pictures of lost Indigenous People above their heads.
The march culminated with a large circle gathering in the parking lot at Civic Field, a smaller circle met in the middle.
Due to the route change and the absence of law enforcement, organizers had to secure crossings by standing in the roads until participants passed. Some drivers expressed impatience at the delays.
“I witnessed this lady pull up, she was getting really impatient, waving everybody away, and I guess she lost patience,” said march participant Aaron Little Dog of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana.
“She took her vehicle and started nudging people. People got physically touched by her vehicle. Plenty of people saw it.”
Sequim Gazette photo by Elijah Sussman / Zumi Chawner of the Lummi Tribe showing support for MMIP on Red Dress Day. May 3.
The lack of law enforcement presence due to the armed bank robbery highlighted a key aspect of the MMIWP conversation: the scarcity of resources for protection and justice. Their absence underscored the community’s demands even more sharply.
(Note: March organizer Beatriz Arakawa noted that she has felt supported by tribal and local law agencies, reflecting a general sentiment when discussing the issue with local organizers. Sequim Police Chief Mike Hill noted that the local tribal and non-tribal law enforcement agencies are in close communication.)
Back at the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center, speakers read names of missing and murdered relatives, followed by a shawl ceremony. The Elwha Casino provided a community meal of spaghetti, fettuccine, salad, and cheesecake.
Real flesh, blood sorrow
Valerie Claplanhoo died of injuries sustained from a knife or sharp object in 2019 in her Sequim home.
In early February of this year, Sequim Police report they’ve opened up their investigation into the 2019 murder to a statewide team specializing in cold cases involving indigenous people.
Deputy Police Chief Mike Hill said police personnel met on Feb. 6 with investigators from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Cold Case Investigation Unit to review the homicide.
The cold case unit was formed from a recommendation by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, a 25-member group started in 2021 to coordinate a statewide response to the urgent crisis of indigenous people who go missing, are the victims of homicide, or experience other types of gender-based violence in urban and tribal communities.
Hill said Sequim Police continue to be the lead agency in Claplanhoo’s investigation and the cold case unit has offered its assistance.
Cindy Lee said she misses her sister and maintains a sense of grief towards her loss and the lack of closure around what happened.
“Valerie and I shared birthdays, hers was on the 30th (of December), mine was on the fifth (of January),” Cindy Lee said. “It’s always difficult to celebrate birthdays.”
Reflecting upon their time together, she recalls Valerie as a road trip co-pilot. They would take long drives exploring the open road from their Neah Bay home. Valerie would bake, cook, and prepare picnics to take on their road trips. Before GPS was ubiquitous, the pair relied on maps; Valerie would study the directions and Cindy Lee would follow her instructions. Once they ended up halfway down the Oregon coast, at the Sea Lion Caves near Florence. At the time, they didn’t know they had crossed state lines. Years later, they were surprised to discover that the caves were in Oregon. They laughed and were dumbfounded at how they could have been so lost.
Through constant prayer, regular check-ins with advocates and law enforcement, and unwavering support from family and her Makah community, Cindy Lee maintains some hope of resolution.
However, five years have passed since Valerie was killed, and the wound remains open.
“If there was closure, if there was a court date, then once the court date was done and finished, then I would have a memorial for my sister,” Cindy Lee said.
Abbreviations and meanings
The abbreviation MMIWP stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People. Here, people include men, two-spirited individuals or Indigenous individuals embracing other gender identities. Others in this article and in general discourse use other abbreviations. Some commonly-used abbreviations regarding this topic include MMIP (Persons), MMIW (Women), MMIWG (Women and Girls), MMIR (Indigenous Relatives) and MMIWG2S (Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit).
