Arizona’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Task Force met for the first time Monday.
Gov. Katie Hobbs created the group in March by executive order.
It’ll recommend ways to stop violence and exploitation against Indigenous people.
The task force is made up of representatives and leaders from Southwestern tribes including Navajo Nation first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren and Jerome Kasey III, vice chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.
The group will submit a report to Hobbs each year until 2026 containing recommended administrative or legislative actions to combat the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
According to a study by Arizona State University, 160 Indigenous women and girls in Arizona are known to have been murdered between 1976 and 2018, but many more have likely gone unreported.
Indigenous women and girls are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than other ethnicities and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women.