FARGO, N.D. – The Fargo-Moorhead Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Human Trafficking Task Force held their fifth march yesterday to honor those who have lost their lives and gone missing.
Amanda Vivier, a member of the local task force, says they must bring awareness to the issue as no solid statistics exist for these cases.
“We’re crying out to the community, that’s why we’re trying to get awareness going, is there really is no real solid statistics. The closest thing that we have to statistics right now is in 2016 there was over 6,000 murdered, missing indigenous people and only 113 of those were documented,” She says
Over 200 community members marched with banners around downtown Fargo singing and dancing.
“Not only raising the awareness, and getting the government to step up, but to ask community members to step up as well, to start developing programs, to source for funding for structured building, maybe some land, and start revitalizing the traditional knowledge and culture. And also educating our people and preparing us in case epidemics like such take place here in the Fargo Moorhead area,” Vivier says.
According to The National Institute of Justice, over 84% of indigenousness women have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence in their lifetime.
