An event drawing awareness to missing and murdered indigenous women is being held in Rapid City this weekend. The candlelight vigil honors women that have disappeared.
The vigil is meant to help the community heal over losses in their lives and around the world. Andreanne Catt is a video blogger for Seeding Sovereignty and an organizer of the event. She says this just the first step.
“You can’t lead a movement, you can’t start a movement until you start healing whatever is broken first. And so I really just want to create a safe space for the victims or the families of missing and murdered indigenous women and help raise awareness because maybe these women are still alive. And it’s really hard to know whether or not.”
Catt says organizers want to push the United States Government to start a registry for missing and murdered indigenous women. She says it’s important to have an accurate statistic.
“It’s so hard to pin point these numbers down because there’s no registry in the United States. And so it’s not just a South Dakota thing or a North Dakota thing, our women are going missing all over the country. Even in Canada. And Canada has a registry for all the missing and murdered indigenous women—yet the United States doesn’t.”
Catt says a registry would make it easier to find these women. The event is scheduled for six p.m. on Saturday in Rapid City.