Toppenish – Today the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force met for the first time at Legends Casino. Members of the task force heard testimonies from family members of victims and survivors and suggestions as to what they could do to help put an end to the MMIW epidemic.
The task force is an attempt from the attorney general’s office to help guide legislation on the crisis. Their job is to put together two reports for the governor and he legislature in 2022 and 2023 with recommendations for them. These recommendations will be based of community accounts, prosecution trends, data collection and retention and race misclassification.
Since today was only the first meeting, the policy analyst Annie Forsman-Adams says they don’t know when the first report will be done, but they don’t want to rush the process.
However, the tribal members in attendance called for action now. An elder said people will continue to go missing during the wait.
“We want something done here, not just today, but everyday forward,” she said.
Families of the missing and murdered also criticized the task force for not inviting them personally to speak during public comment – including activist Roxanne White.
“Our voices are the most vital here,” White said. “You’re trying to learn from us, so why weren’t we invited?”
Many tribal members also said it was disrespectful for the taskforce members not to take the time to appear at the meeting in-person. White herself made a trip to Toppenish from Seattle to attend the meeting.
“If we can be here, why can’t you?” she asked.
Survivors and families of the missing and murdered also made suggestions as to what changes could be made like evaluation of treatment services on the reservation, training for police and help so judges on the Yakama Nation understand the tribe’s traditional laws to name a few.
The center of their message was for everyone to do better.
“We just cannot call these kinds of meetings here and extract information, extract our stories and our trauma and have us share the most hurtful parts of our spirits and not take care of us,” White said.
Forsman-Adams said since this is only the first meeting, there is a learning curve but they do plan to take the families concerns into consideration.
“We are committed to leading this taskforce with equity and being responsive to the concerns of the community and that includes responses to what happens today and what happens in the future,” Forsman-Adams said.
The second part of the meeting will continue on Friday. The task force will discuss their goals for their work and hear an update from the Yakama Nation Tribal Council MMIW Committee.
