Between 27 and 54 Native American women and girls in Minnesota were missing in any given month from 2012 to 2020.

They make up only 1% of the state's population but 8% of all murdered women and girls in Minnesota from 2010 through 2018. Native American women and girls are affected disproportionately. 'It's really important that tribes are starting to lead on these efforts.' 'You beat me to it,' Kunesh said to tribal leaders at the ceremony. And now, the Standing Rock Lakota descendant, one of only a handful of Indigenous legislators, is trying to pass legislation that would create similar state-issued license plates. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, was instrumental in its creation. The plates, for now available to Fond du Lac and Bois Forte citizens who live on their respective reservations, are part of a larger movement in recent years to raise awareness of the under-reported reality that often includes trafficking.Ī first-in-the-nation state office - the Office for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives tasked with addressing the problem - opened this year. The plates are for women like Langenbrunner, and the untold number of missing Native Americans stemming at least to the boarding school era, where Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families, said Cathy Chavers, chair of the Bois Forte Band.

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