A bill under consideration by the Utah Legislature would expand a task force on missing and murdered Indigenous people.
Several officials from the Navajo Nation spoke to lawmakers in favor of the bill this week, including Speaker Crystalyne Curley, First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren and council delegates.
Curley says the state of Utah and Salt Lake City have some of the highest rates of missing Indigenous people in the nation.
The bill would reestablish the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Task Force, which the Legislature formed in 2020 to bolster the state’s response to missing Native American women and girls.
Indigenous women face far higher rates of violence and homicide than the national average.
