Indigenous peoples living in Alaska are killed and disappear at greater rate than nearly anywhere else in the nation.
Vivian Korthuis, chief executive of the Bethel-based Association of Village Council Presidents She said that over 300 Alaska Native people are on the missing and murdered list.
“To me, that’s about the equivalent of the size of a village. A entire village. It’s awe-inspiring to realize how many people who are missing,” she said. “Something must be taken care of.”
Korthuis is part of a panel established by Congress to deal with the tragedy. A panel called the Not Invisible Act Commission was at Anchorage on Wednesday to discuss the testimony of survivors and advocates who are working to stop violence.
They identified a variety of issues, including inadequate services for the vulnerable and the insufficient police presence within rural Alaska. Trauma and racism in the system were frequent themes.
A number of advocates have told the commission that it’s difficult to ensure that federal programs are effective in rural Alaska and especially in smaller tribes. Dana Diehl, director of health and wellness at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium told the commission that federal grants aren’t easily adapted to the needs of communities.
“Oftentimes the funding we receive is extremely limited and narrow. However, in an Alaska Native perspective, we consider things more holistically and you cannot divide aspects like mental health, physical health and spiritual,” she said.
Alex Cleghorn, legal director at the Alaska Native Justice Center, says that the lack of funding can make it difficult for villages to offer public security.
“We are surrounded by tribes from Alaska which are actually playing bingo to for an officer from the tribe,” he said.
The commission invited relatives of murdered and missing Indigenous people to testify in the afternoon session, which was not open to the media.
By the end of October, the group is expected to make recommendations for ways the Federal government could stop and respond to violent acts at the hands of Native American and Alaska Native people.
Korthuis in an interruption during the hearing, stated that her main reason for being as a member of the committee is work on the disparities of infrastructure and resources that render the rural Alaskans more vulnerable as other Americans.
“That’s the thing this whole issue is about – providing the basic security measures that everyone living in the United States and every person (on the road network) in Alaska is accustomed to,” she said.
