Red dress display recognizes murdered, missing Indigenous women

Eric Lindquist, The Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire, Wis.
·3 min read

May 5—EAU CLAIRE — A display of pretty red dresses on UW-Eau Claire's campus mall Wednesday is intended to raise awareness of an ugly crisis.

The Inter-Tribal Student Council at UW-Eau Claire collected the dresses this spring for the display, which was inspired by an international effort to raise awareness about murdered and missing Indigenous women.

The exhibit of empty dresses flapping in the wind Wednesday was among the events planned by the student organization in recognition of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Awareness Day.

"Today is a solemn day to remember those whose lives have been lost or who are missing due to abduction, homicide or trafficking," Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said Wednesday in a statement. "But this is also a day when we can resolve to take action to help prevent future cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women."

The red dress display seeks to bring attention to the issue of missing or murdered women across the United States and Canada. Similar projects have been installed in public spaces elsewhere as a visual reminder of the large number of Indigenous women who are murdered or missing.

"The murder and disappearance of Indigenous women has been a crisis affecting Indigenous communities since the colonization of this continent and others around the world," Maggie Jensen, an associate student services coordinator in UW-Eau Claire's Office of Multicultural Affairs, said in a news release. "The students in the Inter-Tribal Student Council have been passionate about raising awareness about this crisis for a while. It is important to raise awareness about murdered and missing Indigenous women because these cases often fall through the cracks, go unheard and often are ignored by media outlets."

Town of Brunswick Democratic state Sen. Jeff Smith, who was appointed by Kaul last year to be on the attorney general's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force, said the issue is both serious and underreported.

Of more than 5,700 American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls the National Crime Information Centers says were reported missing in 2016, only 116 were logged into the Justice Department's missing persons database, according to a report by the Urban Indian Health Institute.

"These are cases that fly under the radar, and why is that?" Smith asked, suggesting systemic racism could be partly to blame. "We just can't let that keep going on."

Smith co-authored a Joint Resolution introduced Wednesday to designate May 5, 2021, as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Day in Wisconsin. The resolution included the names of 17 Indigenous females who have been murdered or gone missing in Wisconsin since 1989.

A virtual discussion of the issue — part of the "Centering Native Voices" series — will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday. Kristin Welch, who describes herself as Menomonee, Irish, German and of the Marten Clan, will lead the talk, titled "MMIW: Uplifting Matriarchy, Building Power and Collaboratives of Support." Welch is the founder and executive director of the Waking Women Healing Institute.

Homicide is the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women between the ages of 10 and 24 and the fifth-leading cause of death for women between 25 and 34, Jensen said, highlighting the need to bring more attention to the issue.

"We need to raise awareness because these women are important; they deserve to be remembered, found and their families need closure," Jensen said. "The perpetrators of these crimes also need to be brought to justice. ITSC intends to make the issue more visible in our community, which helps educate the public and creates a conversation that needs to result in action.

"Hopefully, more awareness among the public about the issue will lead to more calls for law enforcement and government agencies to invest more time and resources into addressing and preventing the ongoing crisis, while also working more closely with and better supporting tribal nations."

Dresses collected this spring for the UW-Eau Claire project will be kept for use in future displays.

More information about this week's events is available by contacting Jensen at jensemar@uwec.edu.