Students read the stories of missing and murdered indigenous people posted around Abrams Lounge on March 11, 2025. (Ethel Yagudayeva/CU Independent)
On March 11, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Inclusion and Social Change hosted an event highlighting the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
The event took place in the Center for Community’s Abrams Lounge. Students and other guests enjoyed a variety of Native American food while student presenters introduced themselves.
The night began with a reading of the poem, “We Acknowledge Ourselves,” by Allison Akootchook Warden. The poem, a take on modern land acknowledgments, recognizes the systemic hardship Native people have faced at the hands of colonial powers.
Violence against Native women is extensive in the United States. A study from the U.S. Department of the Interior found that more than 1.5 million Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime.
Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies Administrative Coordinator, Lila Crank, began the night’s presentation. As a member of the Navajo Nation, the issue is personal to her.
Crank walked attendees through key definitions and the history of the issue, giving audience members chances to discuss and share.
She discussed how settler colonialism impacts all Native American people, but in many ways is particularly violent towards women or gender non-conforming individuals.
Throughout colonial rule in America, Crank described the tactics of “necessary dehumanization” settlers imposed on Native women, including sexual violence.
Presenter Lila Crank speaking with attendees following her presentation on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Ethel Yagudayeva/CU Independent)
The numbers remain staggering today. According to Amnesty International USA, Native American and Alaskan Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped than non-Native women in the United States.
In addition, Native women who go missing or are murdered, rarely see justice. In 2016, the National Crime Information Center had 5,712 reports of missing Native women and girls. However, only 116 of those cases made it into NamUs, the U.S. Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database.
Crank stressed that part of the issue is confusing jurisdiction on Native reservations, many of which have limited ability to investigate and prosecute cases independently from the U.S. Government.
“It is a collective experience of grief,” said Crank. “Our bodies are battlegrounds.”
Free stickers given out to students on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Ethel Yagudayeva/CU Independent)
Since Native community members often feel they cannot rely on police to find their missing relatives, many have taken the process into their own hands by creating task forces.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Task Force of Colorado is a nonprofit that aims to help victims through the process.
In Colorado, the Office of the Liaison for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives was created in 2022. The office aims to connect families with resources, but does not aid in search or investigation procedures.
“There’s no non-profit organization that has the same resources as the FBI,” said Crank.“We have found some ways to take care of ourselves.”
CU Boulder sophomore Keira Gellys, who is getting a certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies, attended the event. Gelly’s mother is from the Navajo Nation, and over the years she has spent many summers on the reservation.
“I think something that was really interesting was the idea that all the statistics are so shocking to (non-Native people.) But for a lot of Indigenous people. It’s not always that shocking,” she said, “It’s something that I have to worry about with my sisters and my mom, with all my relatives.”
Gellys said that there are some changes she wants to see moving forward from the university.
“I’ve always wanted to see more from CU, especially with Indigenous students and providing that kind of support. Just with running our events, creating the support systems and more representation on campus,” she said, “We don’t want to just be a picture online, that’s like ‘Hey we’ve got some representation here,’ and that’s it.”
Two students chat after the presentation on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Ethel Yagudayeva/CU Independent)
Crank emphasized CU Boulder’s efforts to increase support for Native students, including a Native student support position, which was added in May 2024.
In terms of what students and Boulder community members can do, Crank said, “I think the key is to actually build community with Native people. Take advantage of opportunities to come to predominantly native spaces and be a stranger in those spaces, and make Native friends and show up for Native people.”
At the end of the event, students wrote letters to their representatives supporting action and changes that would give Native people more resources to find and protect their loved ones. Templates for those letters can be found here.
Contact CU Independent News Editor Greta Kerkhoff at Greta.kerkhoff@colorado.edu
Contact CU Independent Staff Photographer Ethel Yagudayeva at Ethel.yagudayeva@colorado.edu
