Savanna’s Act Signed Into Law
This past Saturday, President Trump signed Savanna’s Act, a bipartisan bill Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wa) introduced to help deliver justice to the families and loved ones of missing and murdered indigenous women, into law.
The Congressman noted this is a signal to Native communities across the country that the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women will no longer go unnoticed. Indigenous women face a murder rate ten times higher than the national average.
The families and loved ones of these women have waited far too long for justice, and the hope is that we can begin working to ensure Native American women will no longer face violent crimes that go uninvestigated or unsolved.
For decades, Native American women have faced disproportionately high murder and violence rates, and because of complicated jurisdictions, many of these cases have been left unsolved - including dozens here in Central Washington.
Savanna’s Act aims to increase coordination between law enforcement agencies and develop guidelines for officers to investigate these cases and - finally - deliver justice to the families and loved ones of these women. Savanna's Act is the fruition of the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement.
Another bipartisan bill that has passed is the Not Invisible Act of 2020. This bill increases the coordination of efforts to reduce violent crime within tribal lands and against Native Americans.
Specifically, the Department of the Interior must designate an official within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to coordinate prevention efforts, grants, and programs related to missing Native Americans and the murder and human trafficking of Native Americans.
Learn more about that new law here.
Town Square Media partners nbcrightnow filed this report