Native women face violence at extraordinary rates. A 2016 National Institute of Justice report found that more than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women had experienced violence in their lifetime. In 2016, the National Crime Information Center recorded 5,712 reports of missing Native women and girls. Only 116 were logged in the federal missing persons database, according to a 2018 Urban Indian Health Institute report.
The crisis has structural causes. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish that tribes cannot prosecute non-Native people for crimes on tribal land, leaving gaps in jurisdiction. Underfunded tribal police, poor data and media neglect add to it.
In October 2020, Congress passed Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act to improve data and coordination. Native organizers use red handprints and red dresses as symbols, and May 5 is observed as a national day of awareness.