Restoration Magazine

The new Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) State Legislative Tracker is a navigational database offered by NIWRC to assist the national movement in monitoring and understanding pending local legislation addressing the crisis of MMIW.

“The NIWRC is pleased to launch the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) State Legislative Tracker,” said Lucy Simpson (Diné), Executive Director, NIWRC. “As the grassroots movement continues to organize locally and nationally, there is an increase in legislative reforms to respond to this crisis. We hope the Tracker will support these efforts for social justice to monitor state legislation.”

The MMIW State Legislative Tracker is a continuation of the MMIW Monthly Legislative Summary, previously released as part of our monthly legislative update. Now in the form of a navigational database tracker, it is a tool to support tribal grassroots leaders, the family and  community members of MMIW, grassroots advocates, and state and local legislators to easily search legislation relating to MMIW within their state and across the country.

“There are currently over 30 pieces of legislation related to MMIW at the state level moving through the process or already signed into law within this legislative session,” Simpson said.

This educational policy tracker is a compilation of current legislation (2020-2022) at the state level focused on addressing the crisis of MMIW. While the tracker does not promote, advocate, or provide analysis on any specific MMIW legislation, it does include summaries of the legislation, its status, links to relevant news articles, and more. You can access the tracker at niwrc.org/mmiw-state-tracker.

How to Use the Tracker

The Tracker is ordered alphabetically by state. In each state with MMIW legislation, you can find the bill number, status, important dates, the bill title, a summary of the bill, links to the full text and summary, and relevant news articles. Simply scroll up and down to move through the different pieces of legislation, and left to right to learn more about a piece of legislation.

• To read more information about a piece of legislation: click on the double arrow icon in the right corner of each cell to expand.

• Search for legislation: use the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the Tracker to search for your state or a bill (using the bill number or title). For example, if you are from Arizona, search “AZ”.
• Use the filter tool: click on the icon with three lines in the top left corner if you want to limit the type of legislation you are looking for. For example, if you are only looking for bills that have passed, choose “Status” is “Passed”.

Help Update MMIW Legislative Tracker

If you have any information or updates about legislation relating to MMIW in your area, fill out this form: bit.ly/3mVdFuy