VAWA

Floor Speech

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Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to take action to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in this country. It is a crisis that we need to address now, and we can do this in the Senate by updating the Violence Against Women Act, which expired earlier this year.

I would like to thank my colleagues who have been able to join with us today to speak on this important topic led by Senator Udall, and it is wonderful to be here today with Senator Murray as well.

Last month, I had an opportunity to lead a roundtable at the Minnesota State Capitol to discuss the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. This is a crisis that affects Tribal nations all over my State, as well as urban indigenous communities. I was there with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is the highest ranking Native woman elected in an executive branch role here in the United States. It was wonderful to be there with her and all of the advocates who were present as well.

At the roundtable, I heard about survivors who have experienced trafficking and sexual violence who feel invisible. I heard from Native advocates and families of victims who feel they are not being listened to by local law enforcement, and they also understand that there is a lack of knowledge about cultural and traditional practices that is impeding the efforts to end this crisis and to get help and healing to Native women who have been victimized.

In Minnesota, I hear time and again from leaders of Tribal nations-- from Red Lake and White Earth to Bois Forte, Mille Lacs, and Prairie Island--who speak of violent crimes on their land, including the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. I hear from some of these leaders about how they are unable to take action against the nonmember offenders who are committing these crimes.

According to the National Institute of Justice, 84 percent of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetimes--84 percent--and over half of Native women and more than one in four men have experienced sexual violence. Among those, almost all--96 percent of women and 89 percent of men--were victimized by a non-Tribal member. Few of these survivors end up seeing justice because what is happening is that the Federal Government is failing to address the scourge of violence against Native communities.

Raising awareness of this crisis is important, and that is what we are working to do today, but there are several bipartisan measures in the Senate that would take significant steps to address it. We must take action, and I am here today to talk about some of the things we can do.

In April, the House passed a Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill with many strong Tribal protections to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, including my bill, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, to help Tribes seek and get justice for their members and for survivors.

Our bill, which is called the Justice for Native Survivors of Sexual Violence Act, expands upon the landmark special domestic violence jurisdiction granted to Tribes during the last rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.

Our bill would allow Tribes to prosecute cases of sexual assault, trafficking, and stalking, among other crimes of sexual violence, against nonmember offenders. Think about what this means today. If you are a nonmember and you commit a crime of sexual violence against a Tribal member, the Tribe, which is often in the best position to follow up on, investigate, and prosecute that crime, is currently unable to do that.

The bill that I am working on with Senator Murkowski would fix that problem in the Violence Against Women Act. Without this jurisdiction, Tribes are unable to pursue charges against all offenders who commit crimes of sexual violence on Tribal land. Instead, those offenders go largely unpunished, as Federal courts fail to investigate or to prosecute these crimes. Passing our bill would go a long way toward deterring violence against Native women in Indian Country and holding offenders accountable when it happens.

I call on the Senate to take bold action to address the crisis of violence against Native communities by taking up the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and passing this legislation as soon as possible.

Any reauthorization bill must include strong Tribal protections, such as our Justice for Native Survivors bill, so that survivors can begin to heal and we can prevent violence from happening in the first place. Survivors and families of victims deserve this at the very least.

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Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, first, I just want to say, as Senator Udall knows, I was born in New Mexico, so I have a strong affinity for his wonderful State, my home State--my original home State--and I learned so much about the amazing cultural assets of indigenous people and Native American people in the Southwest.

When I moved to Minnesota and I had an opportunity to get to know Minnesota's 11 sovereign Tribal Nations, that was sort of my foundation for that work. When I became aware of how Native women, who were so often the victims of sexual violence, are literally invisible in the criminal justice system, I was just really horrified.

First, notice this: As Senator Udall and I were talking about this issue with many others in the Indian Affairs Committee, I became aware that there are thousands and thousands of women who have been reported missing, yet the Justice Department has on their big list only about 100 of them. Literally, these women are invisible.

In the roundtable that I had with Lieutenant Governor Flanagan last week and in other conversations I have had, I have heard personal stories so many times of women, like Savanna Greywind, who are murdered in terrible and violent ways and don't end up ever--their family never has the opportunity to feel the sense of justice and healing that you have from knowing that the perpetrator of this terrible violence has been brought to justice.

I am just going to--I would like to tell one story about a woman whom I spoke with in Saint Paul whose daughter was murdered in January of 2018. To this day, she still awaits the release of her daughter's body because of mixups and snafus in the system. Imagine what that would be like. This is just one example of how Native women in the criminal justice system don't get the dignity and the respect they deserve.

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