Community Members Gather to Honor Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives
ASHLAND, WI – On Thursday, July 23, more than a hundred community members gathered at Bayview Beach Park to bring awareness to the continent-wide epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR). This epidemic is uniquely prevalent in areas around fossil fuel construction projects, such as the one currently underway along Enbridge’s Line 5 Reroute.
At the MMIWR rally, Bad River elders spoke about the epidemic. Indigenous community members performed a healing prayer, song, and jingle dress dance. Water defenders from near and far stood in solidarity. Collectively, the community demanded an end to the human trafficking, violence, and the sexual abuses enabled and perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry.
The MMIWR epidemic, though well documented due to the fierce advocacy of Indigenous relatives, is chronically underreported in mainstream news. Indigenous women have led projects to map and document the abductions and murders. The epidemic has also been recognized by international bodies like the UN. In the context of fossil fuel construction projects, the MMIWR crisis is strongly associated with “man camps,” or concentrations of mass housing for fossil fuel workers from outside of the community.
Reports have been published by several institutions, including the National Crime Statistic Exchange (NCSX), which give specific statistics on the violence against Indigenous women and relatives in areas around man camps. After the Bakken oil boom in Montana and North Dakota, the NCSX found that rates of aggrevated assault reported to the police increased by 70% and intimate partner violence perpetrated against women increased by 33% in the Bakken region. NCSX also found that crime in the surrounding regions where there was no oil boom decreased over the same period of time.
Although Enbridge states that it has “zero tolerance” for human trafficking, Enbridge’s man camps are no exception when it comes to MMIWR. An active man camp exists in Mellen
During the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 in Minnesota, two Enbridge workers were arrested for human trafficking. The February before these arrests, two other Enbridge employees were charged with human trafficking in Duluth.
There is currently a man camp in the Marengo River Valley region to house pipeline workers working on the Line 5 reroute. There is also spillover housing for workers in several hotels and short-term rentals in the region.
After the rally, some of the attendees participated in a candlelight vigil for Corey Ruiz, a man who was murdered by police officers in Madison, WI the day before.
The rally was held as part of the Week of Resistance against Line 5. During the week, folks from around the Chequamegon Bay, and Great Lakes region participated in workshops, construction monitoring, and more in resistance to the reroute.
Further reading
From Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/voices/the-darkest-side-of-fossil-fuel-extraction/
From KTSP: the story of 2 Enbridge workers arrested for human trafficking during Line 3 https://kstp.com/kstp-news/local-news/6-arrested-in-human-trafficking-sting-including-2-enbridge-line-3-pipeline-workers/
From the Department of Justice: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/violent-victimization-known-law-enforcement-bakken-oil-producing “From 2006 to 2012, the rate of violent victimization known to law enforcement in the Bakken oil-producing region of Montana and North Dakota increased, particularly the rate of aggravated assault, which increased 70%.”
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/violence-against-american-indian-and-alaska-native-women-and-men
“The federal government has a "trust responsibility to assist tribal governments in safeguarding the lives of Indian women."Yet in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that tribes did not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. This meant that federally recognized tribes had no authority to criminally prosecute non-Indians who commit these, even for crimes committed in Indian Country. This essentially provided immunity to non-Indians and compromised the safety of American Indian and Alaska Native women and men.