62% of Missing Native Americans Are Male: CEDV Calls for End to Sexist Pattern of Bias and Neglect

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

62% of Missing Native Americans Are Male: CEDV Calls for End to Sexist Pattern of Bias and Neglect

WASHINGTON / June 15, 2021 – Sixty-two percent of missing Native Americans are male, according to the Department of Justice. As of 2019, the DOJ’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System reported 404 missing Native Americans – 250 males and 154 females — revealing a 62% sex disparity affecting men (1). Despite this fact, some groups are promoting the misconception that only female Native Americans are affected by the problem.

State-level statistics confirm that Native American men represent a majority of missing Indians.

In Nebraska, a 2020 report by the Nebraska State Patrol revealed, “The majority of missing Native Americans are males under the age of 17 years old: Nearly two thirds (73.3%) of the Native American missing persons are boys (age 17 years old or younger).” (2)

On the Navajo reservation, 60-70% of missing persons are male. In 2017, Brandon Lee Sandoval disappeared from the family home in northeastern Arizona. “It’s so hard to wake up and face another day,” his mother Margaret Bitsue said, her words muffled by sobs. “I have accepted the fact he might be gone, but I still have that little hope.” (3)

An article in the Voice of America News titled, “Are Missing and Murdered Indigenous Men in US Being Ignored?” shared these examples (1):

On the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase reports, “I can tell you from what I’ve witnessed personally, that men are murdered and missing more than the women.”
In California, Joseph Scott, a member of the Pala Band of Indians went missing. Scott’s cousin, Mona Sespe, notified the tribal police, who refused to investigate. Only after she complained to the tribal chairman did anyone take action. “It feels like we were almost laughed at for trying so hard to find them,” Sespe said.

But inexplicably, activists often make the claim that the problem only affects females.

Senators Cortez Masto of Nevada and Murkowski of Alaska recently published an editorial that misrepresents the facts about missing and murdered American Indians. Titled “Shocking History of Violence Against Native Women is a Crisis We Can Stop,” the editorial spotlights the problem of missing and murdered American Indian women — but includes no mention of missing and murdered Indian men (4).

Part of the problem can be traced to the Violence Against Women Act that includes a section titled, “Safety for Indian Women.” Commentator Wendy McElroy notes that VAWA’s exclusionary focus on female Indians represents a “parody of human rights in which only approved groups are recognized as victims….Only those who share the secondary characteristic of approved genitalia receive compassion.” (5)

The recent DOJ report, “Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons: Law Enforcement and Prevention” serves as an example of a gender-balanced approach that should be emulated (6). The Coalition to End Domestic Violence calls for an end to policies and practices that exclude Native Americans on the basis of sex.

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