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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature passed a bill that hopes to address the state's high number of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
Utah has the eighth highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls cases in the country, according to a national report. Meanwhile, Salt Lake City was listed ninth out of 71 cities with the highest number of cases.
HB25 extends the Utah Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Task Force another year and renames it to the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Task Force. It passed the House with a 69-5 vote and the Senate with a 27-2 vote.
The task force is made up of state lawmakers as well as representatives from nonprofit and victim advocate organizations, tribes, the Division of Indian Affairs, the Utah Attorney General's Office and the Human Services and Public Safety departments.
The law that established the task force in 2020 included a sunset date of November 2023. However, members of the task force say additional time will allow them to better implement recommendations from a report currently being compiled about gender violence and safety of Indigenous women and girls in Utah. The report received $130,000 in funding from the Legislature and is being conducted by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.
Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, and bill co-sponsor Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, are members of the task force. She said after the report is completed in November, the task force plans to visit Indigenous communities across the state to share the report's findings and receive feedback.
"I think for a long period of time, you didn't really hear Native Voices or you never heard about relatives going missing, and it was just an afterthought for many people," Romero said. "We're committed to addressing this issue — this epidemic — and will continue to work with our tribal leaders and different nonprofit organizations that are working on this issue as well as hopefully connecting with our federal leaders."
Romero said it's still up in the air whether the task force will be made permanent once it expires in 2024.
"Based off (the report's) findings, that will be kind of my compass to see whether we try to make this a permanent task force or roll it under the Native American Legislative Liaison Committee," she said. "But until we get the recommendations from the Wilder Institute, I'm hesitant to say I'll run future legislation to extend the task force."
