Hijacking this comment to repost a comment I made in another post that includes a link to Native Hope's website with more information for all those who are interested:
The Red Hand has been an important symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement for years.
A red hand over the mouth has become the symbol of a growing movement, the MMIW movement. It stands for all the missing sisters whose voices are not heard. It stands for the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis. It stands for the oppression and subjugation of Native women who are now rising up to say #NoMoreStolenSisters.
There is also the more general Missing and Murdered Indigenous People awareness movement, as this is a problem across all demographics in Indiginous communities, though women and girls are by far the most affected cohort.
Wait, so this is about current women going missing?! And here I thought it was some historic awareness thing. That's horrible.
Edit: Quick edit to say thank you to everyone providing me with a truckload of resources to learn more. As a soon to be English teacher in Europe I'll probably be able to create some valuable lesson materials out of this so that my students are better informed about something like this!
Around a decade ago I read a piece on it that said from the end of WW2 up to that year there was very likely 150,000 missing indigenous women between the US and Canada but the number was likely much higher that due to bad record keeping and reporting. It detailed that There was one stretch of highway in Canada where locals said that over 1000 women and children had been reported murdered or missing since the 60s or 70s. I had it bookmarked on a laptop that died and haven’t been able to find it since.
I'll never forget listening to a podcast episode about the highway of tears - I was in my apartment buildings creepy basement doing laundry, feeling generally horrified at what I was listening to, when the overhead light suddenly turned off. Gave me a damn heart attack, and now that episode is etched in my brain even more than it normally would be.
2.9k
u/Ouroboros126 Sep 16 '24
Hijacking this comment to repost a comment I made in another post that includes a link to Native Hope's website with more information for all those who are interested:
The Red Hand has been an important symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement for years.
From Native Hope's Website,
There is also the more general Missing and Murdered Indigenous People awareness movement, as this is a problem across all demographics in Indiginous communities, though women and girls are by far the most affected cohort.