MMIW

While violence against women effects many communities across the country and around the world, Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada are particularly impacted by this crisis. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) is a movement that advocates for the end of violence against Native people, and draws awareness to high rates of disappearances and murders, particularly of Native women and girls. 

Some other terms for the movement include:
MMIWG = Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
MMIW = Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
MMIP = Missing and Murdered Indigenous People
MMIWG2S = Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2-Spirit People

The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people is not new–it is steeped in the roots of colonization and genocide and is the result of systematic erosion of tribal sovereignty along with the repeated failures of the federal government to hold perpetrators accountable for violence. According to the FBI's National Crime Information Center, in 2020 alone there were 5,295 Indigenous women and 4,276 Indigenous men reported missing across the United States.