Advocates say not enough is being done to track the issue and hold offenders responsible.
The murder rate of Indigenous women is more than 10 times beyond the national average on some reservations, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Four out of five Indigenous women have reported experiencing violence, more than half of which have been sexual in nature, according to the National Congress of American Indians.
There were 565 actively missing Indigenous women across the country, KUTV reported on Feb. 4, citing information from the FBI.
Yet data from Indigenous organizations suggest that figure might actually be far greater. In 2016, the Urban Indian Health Institute found there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, of which only 116 had been in a federal missing persons database.