Savanna's Act and Not Invisible Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. STANTON. Madam Speaker, I offer my stanch support for Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act. It is a horrific fact that Native American women face a murder rate ten times higher than the national average, with eighty-four percent experiencing some form of violence in their lifetime. To make matters worse, without a dedicated federal database designated to collecting information on the number of how many Native women go missing or are murdered every year, we do not have the whole picture--this is completely unacceptable. Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act begin to address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

In Arizona, a state home to 22 Native American tribes, we recognize and know the horrors of this crisis. We know that it is a misconception that Native women only go missing on Tribal lands. Studies have shown that the majority of Native Americans and Alaska Native people now live in urban communities, where they also go missing. Violence against Native women spans beyond tribal lands and thus so must the solutions.

I am encouraged to see these bills come to the House Floor for consideration because it has taken us too long to act on this issue. It has taken us too long and lives have been taken and lost. We cannot in good conscience continue with inaction. I support the passage of these bills and hope they are signed into law as soon as possible--we owe it to the Native American women who we have lost and those who are still with us today and worry they might be next.

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