Earth-Feather Sovereign, Indigenous Women’s Warrior Society, founder
The acronym MMIW or Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, which includes both Native American and Native Alaskan women, has helped spark a growing awareness of the number of women who have gone missing or been murdered at rates far greater than other groups of people. Earth-Feather Sovereign, a Native American female member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, says there is an epidemic of MMIW across the country, and here in Washington State. Sovereign, a sexual assault and domestic violence advocate, as well as the founder of Indigenous Women’s Warrior Society, is herself a survivor of domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual violence. What is known, she says, is that one in two Native women will experience sexual assault; one in three Native women will experience domestic violence; homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native women 10 years to 34 years old; 70 percent of sexual violence crimes are caused by non-tribal members; and Native American women experience violence overall at 10 times the national average,” Sovereign says. Sovereign also has had two adopted sisters murdered. She says another sister and her mother also have been traumatized by sexual violence. “My mother and father were in a domestic violence relationship, and my grandparents also were in a domestic violence relationships, on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family,” she says. 76
spokanecda.com / NOVEMBER 2018