REPRESENTATIVE MARY KUNESH-PODEIN CALLED FOR A GOVERNOR’S TASK FORCE TO EXCLUSIVELY ADDRESS THE ENDEMIC CRISIS OF MISSING AND MURDERED NATIVE WOMEN IN MINNESOTA.

Today in St. Paul, Minnesota, two of four Minnesota Native American legislators, Rep. Kunesh-Podein, a descendant of the Standing Rock Lakota Tribe and Rep. Becker-Finn, a descendant of the Leech Lake Ojibwe, known as for a Governor’s Task Force to forestall violence in opposition to Indigenous women.Nationwide, Native women suffer from violence at a price and a half times more than another group. In some regions of Minnesota, Native women are murdered at quotes which can be more than 10 instances the national common.
Representative Mary Kunesh-Podein (DFL–New Brighton) called for a Governor’s task pressure at a press convention this morning to completely cope with the disaster in Minnesota.
“The violence towards our Indigenous girls is surprising and heartbreaking,” said Rep. Kunesh-Podein. “These are our sisters, our moms, our daughters, our aunts, our colleagues, and our pals. These women are Minnesotans and we are failing to shield them. No circle of relatives must watch a cherished one stroll out the door and now not understand if they’ll see them again.”
“My cousin, Rebecca Anderson, changed into murdered in 2015 in South Minneapolis,” said Korina Barry, a member of the Leech Lake Ojibwe at the press convention. Rebecca Anderson changed into additionally a member of the Mille Lacs/Leech Lake Ojibwe.
“Today, her children stay with out their mom. Our own family has not obtained justice. Rebecca’s tale is certainly one of many missing and murdered Indigenous girls in Minnesota,” said Barry.
According to Rep Kunesh-Podein’s office, there’s no machine in location to accumulate complete information on lacking and murdered Native women in Minnesota. The task force will value much less than a $1 million a year and work with the Commissioner of Public Safety, country, tribal, federal, and non-governmental agencies to develop appropriate strategies for monitoring and amassing records, including better offering a better definition to the coordinated efforts to cease the violence towards Indigenous women.
The undertaking force can even provide analysis regarding the systemic reasons behind the quantity of lacking Native American ladies within the nation to law enforcement, policymakers and the public.
“Violence disproportionately inflicted on Native girls isn’t a brand new trend,” said Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn (DFL-Roseville). “This problem has existed for hundreds of years, with disappointment and trauma spanning generations. Each one in all our Native sisters taken from us had a family and community who is stricken by this loss. This violence and loss continues these days and it is lengthy past time we do something positive about it.”
“Today, I need to recall my sister and friend Ingrid Washinawatok, who was murdered two decades in the past,” said Sharon Day. “Also my two-spirit sisters, Marsha Gomez and Faye Wennell, both artists, and Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow, transgender. And finally, my blood sister Debbie Porter, stabbed to demise in Duluth. There isn’t one people who hasn’t felt the grief of dropping a person to violence. It’s time for this to forestall.”
“When you hide behind who is proper or wrong—at the same time as some other life is taken or is going lacking—speaks volumes of the way broken this justice device certainly is,” said Mary Lyons, an Ojibwe Elder. “The aftermath, the fallout of what happens to the human beings, the kids, the communities they go away in the back of, they keep to stay and breathe the ache. A unique research unit could fee less than the foster care or adoption expenses in an effort to incur for years. The pain of 1 lady missing or murdered never fades, it’s miles just buried for eternity or till any other life is taken or is going lacking. This is a cycle that may be broken if we work collectively in harmony.”
According to Kunes-Podein’s office, the mission force will record yearly to the legislature, presenting pointers to lessen and give up violence against Indian women and ladies in Minnesota, consisting of any proposed legislation that may be needed to confront the trouble. When Rep. Kunesh-Podein’s proposed regulation is signed into regulation, the challenge force could cross into impact as early as July of this 12 months.