Missing and murdered task force of the indigenous peoples

Tucson, ariz. (13 news) – “We are 4th in the nation because they missed and murdered indigenous women and children, and that is not acceptable. We have to prioritize this,” said Laura Conover, lawyer of Pima County.

“It is a topic that has not yet been completed in the Indian country. When I say the Indian country, I mean the American indigenous people, reservations,” said Oscar Flores, Attorney General of Pascua Yaqui.

It is a problem that not many are aware of the disproportionately high number of indigenous women and children who are missing and murdered, especially in the USA

“And it really has a lot to do with the expulsion of tribes of the American indigenous people in the United States. We have community members, the higher violent rates, higher poverty rates and many different topics, socio -economic problems that literally mean, missed, unnoticed and subjected,” says Flores.

The Southern Arizona Task Force for missing and murdered indigenous peoples is a new team that is dedicated to the review of the current methods to identify MMIP cases, find gaps in the victim services, make political changes and to create solid accountability.

The first meeting was last month.

“We separated into small groups and did a lot of work. We hoped that we had about 12-15 people there and 52 people appeared.

In a first in the nation agreement, in 2021 the tribe Pascua Yaqui allowed the Pima district to cross the Yaqui public prosecutor. This enables these prosecutors to have full access, to support PCAO work cases and to better pursue the needs of victims.

The Tohono O'odham tribe followed next year.

“The tribal lawyer may add that a person has caused a lot of damage. We are pursuing them because of something in Tucson, but maybe they were a persistent danger of the tribe and the judge would simply not know, and we would be missing this information,” says Conover.

According to Flores, it was a big step towards change. 13 News asked him if there are women from the Pascua Yaqui tribe that are missing.

“That is the interesting question, right? And we asked and examined a lot of our own end. In order to answer the question, in all likelihood, it is most likely.”

However, the statistics are incomplete. According to Flores, cases that are seen as missing people are seen as missing people. And it is these assumptions that he says to cause the most damage, one of the main reasons why this task force was created.

And the mission is to keep families safe and together.

“These are households with several generational grandmother, mother, siblings, cousins, aunts who all live in the same household, and if a piece is missing, it is devastating.”

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