By Abdi Mohamed
The effort to spotlight the crisis of missing and murdered Black women and girls has gone national with the introduction of the Brittany Clardy Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Act in Congress.
Rep. Ilhan Omar proposed the bill during the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference in late September, and she believed it would gain support from her colleagues. The introduction of the bill now gives her a shorter time frame for passage compared to typical bills.
Despite this challenge, she was able to garner the support of 57 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to endorse the bill and address the issue of missing and murdered Black women and girls. “This bill is dedicated to the memory of Minnesotans like Brittany Clardy, and the countless other Black women who have been the victims of crimes, but whose cases were initially brushed off by law enforcement,” said Rep. Omar.
“The crisis of missing and murdered Black women and girls demands urgent action. This is not just a piece of legislation. It’s a beacon of hope for Black women and girls across the nation. By creating a dedicated office, we are not only addressing the alarming disparities in violence but also reaffirming our commitment to ensuring that every Black life is valued and protected.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey sponsored the bill with Rep. Omar and underlined the issue of disparity that Black women and girls are facing when it comes to solving their cases.
“Despite Black women and girls representing a disproportionate number of missing women in the United States, their cases typically garner less attention,” said Rep. Watson Coleman. “These missing women are mothers and daughters, sisters and friends. Each of them deserves the attention we would give to any missing person.
“The creation of a dedicated office within the DOJ [Department of Justice] focused on these cases can offer hope to the families and friends of the nearly 100,000 missing Black women and girls across the country.”
Minnesota’s groundwork
Most sections of the bill were inspired by the work done in Minnesota to establish the first office in the country dedicated to providing justice for missing and murdered Black women and girls and their families.
“We all watched with attentive eyes the progress Minnesota was making in regard to creating the Office on Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls, and were inspired,” said Rep. Omar, who worked with Dr. Brittany Lewis and Lakeisha Lee, both part of the Missing and Murdered African American Women task force that was integral in establishing the state office.
The two traveled throughout Minnesota along with other members of the task force conducting interviews and doing research to collect information on the experiences of Black women who had been the victims of violence and abuse. They found that many women who were victimized experienced systemic failures in health, housing, and financial opportunities, that put them at risk for further victimization.
“We really did utilize the research that Dr. Lewis has done [and] talking to Clardy’s family about what would be necessary in looking at the Minnesota legislation that passed. [We looked at] what they learned from the task force, utilizing all of that to inform the legislation was a vital part of the process,” Rep. Omar said.
According to the National Crime Information Center, 268,884 girls and women were reported missing in 2020; 34 percent of them were Black despite being only 15 percent of the U.S. female population. On average, cases involving Black girls and women stay open four times longer than other cases according to a report by Research in Action and The Advocates for Human Rights.
“In 2021, the state of Minnesota became the first in the nation to create a Missing and Murdered African American Women’s Task Force,” said Dr. Lewis, founder and CEO of Research in Action. “As a leader of this effort, Research in Action used our community-centered, equity-in-action process-model to work with women who have been directly impacted by this violence, in the final legislative report to identify concrete and actionable solutions.”
The access and sharing of data are central components that helped establish the state office for Missing and Murdered Black Women (MMBW) and are a large part of what helped establish the federal office.
Going nationwide
The local office for MMBW was created to increase the coordination of information-sharing among counties, police departments, and other state agencies. With the issue of MMBW gaining national attention, Rep. Omar and others began looking for coordination and communication to extend across state lines through the Department of Justice.
“The other big piece is going to be the data-sharing and creating a central point for that data to be held,” Rep. Omar said. “We want to utilize the opportunities that will be created from grants for states to also begin collecting that data and putting it in a national database, so that there is a hub for that information.”
Another component that came out of the local task force’s research was the need for Black women to be central to this work, especially those with proximity to these issues in hopes that they have a better understanding of the needs of victims. As Dr. Lewis and Lakeisha Lee spoke to service providers and women in shelters, they found that having someone who looked like them and was familiar with their experiences helped to ensure that they had a better experience through the process.
The federal MMBW office would be tasked with conducting research into the crisis and reporting its findings to Congress focusing on the causes of these cases, analyzing the intersections of human trafficking and domestic violence, and making policy recommendations towards a comprehensive solution.
The office would also create a national advisory committee made up of Black women and girls with personal experiences and would include family members of victims. It would also be charged with issuing grants to community-based organizations that provide culturally appropriate survivor and victim support programs.
Families not heard
Lee spoke about the ways in which the system failed her family when her sister, Brittany Clardy, was murdered more than a decade ago. Since then, Lee has led on this issue of MMBW and has continued her goal to support change so that families do not go through what she and her family experienced during the loss of her sister.
“Many young Black women in the U.S. have the same story as Brittany, but do not get media attention. The families are not heard by law enforcement, and they are left feeling lost and hopeless,” said Lee, co-founder of The Brittany Clardy Foundation.
“As Brittany’s keeper, I want to bring awareness to those who are lost and voiceless, and amplify their needs, and walk alongside survivors with hope for future generations, advocating for change. We must and can do better. I believe when Black women and girls are safe, all of us are safe.”
