June 2 2019 - Carrying the Message: Ending Violence Against Indigenous Peoples by Roxanne White

Greetings all! My name is Roxanne White, Nez Perce, Yakama, Gros Ventre & Nooksack. I am the Indigenous outreach coordinator for InnovationsHTC. I am a human trafficking survivor, advocate, and activist for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.

I will be traveling to the Fort Hall Indian reservation from June 6th through June 9th to support and assist on shedding light to Missing & Murdered Indigenous People on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. The committee of “ Carrying the Message “ has organized a Prayer Walk for Missing relatives Austin Frost Pevo February 3, 2018 & Matthew Jay Broncho March 20, 2019.

We welcome and call for any & all media, journalists, and local news outlets to talk with the Pevo & Broncho family and help us call action to this issue.

The Prayer Walk will take place on June 8th 2019 at the Fort Hall reservation (see flyer below for more information).

We also want to invite all Indigenous People and allies to come walk in prayer and stand with us. We have learned that our collaborative of working together is necessary for the awareness and justice for Indigenous People.

As a life-giver of two son’s and grandmother to my first grandson. I personally feel that we have a growing responsibility to look more closely at missing persons cases, especially in Indian Country.

The epidemic of missing Native people has been an invisible crisis for far too long. A study done by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that 5,712 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls were reported in 2016, and only 116 of them were logged in the Department of Justice database.

This is a problem that cuts across ages. Approximately 135 cases were victims of 18 years of age or younger. They range from the youngest victim, a baby less than a year old, to an elder who was 83 years old.

While most of the attention and research is on the violence against Indigenous women, our men are vulnerable too, as Austin’s case demonstrates.

What about indigenous men and boys?

A study by Dr. Adam Jones seems very relevant in the United States.

“Aboriginal men account for approximately 71 per cent of aboriginal homicide victims in Canada, but rates of violence against indigenous men don't seem to mobilize the same kind of support or interest — and haven't been studied to the same extent.” Dr. Adam Jones, a professor of political science at UBC Okanagan, wants to change that.

In his work as a comparative genocide scholar, Jones has embarked on a project to understand "patterns of violent victimization against men and boys," and place it in the context of gendered violence as a whole.

Jones stresses that it's important for men and women, indigenous and non-indigenous, to advocate across gender lines and show solidarity with each other. He recently wrote an op-ed that highlights the fact that aboriginal men are murdered more often than aboriginal women, and proposes that an inquiry include an investigation of violence against both genders.

'Men and boys have typically been not only marginalized but demonised in this equation. When we think of 'the man' and 'the boy' we tend to think in terms of the perpetrator. Of course, it's the case that the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of severe violence against aboriginal and other women are male - but that has often occluded our understanding of the way that males can be even more vulnerable to violence from other males than women are.'
- Adam Jones “

We are this nation's first people. Thank you for helping us to end the silence that has been used as violence against Indigenous People throughout Indian Country.

For more information on the Carrying the Message prayer walk contact Susan Pevo 208-530-8033

Link to Dr. Adam Jones Interview

It was great to be interviewed alongside two great Indigenous women For the purpose of Data collection

https://www.facebook.com/betweenthelinesbyhuffpost/videos/191855785070389/

Much of my work has been building relationships with Main stream media. My family and so many others need Main stream media to Shed light on Our Missing.

https://www.cnn.com/…/…/lead-mclean-dnt-live-jake-tapper.cnn

MMIP fliers done by Ronda Hanning founder of “Missing & Taken Indigenous People”

By Roxanne White (Nez Perce, Yakama, Gros Ventre & Nooksack)