Episode Two Of "Stolen: The Search For Jermain" Exposes Violence Against Indigenous Women

 When someone disappears in the U.S., there is a playbook investigators follow, but those routine questions get way more complicated when the person who has disappeared is an Indigenous woman or girl. In the second episode of Gimlet/Spotify’s new true crime podcast  “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” out today, host and journalist Connie Walker investigates how traditional investigations often fail Indigenous women. 

Listen to episode two here. 

Walker reports on how Indigenous women face some of the highest rates of violence in the U.S. as she dives deeper into the disappearance of young Indigenous mother, Jermain Charlo, in Montana. 

 “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” is a new true-crime podcast from Gimlet/Spotify that premiered March 1.

This new podcast uncovers the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) human-rights crisis disproportionately affects Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, notably those in the FNIM (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) and Native American communities.

According to U.S. crime statistics, Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Native women is sexually assaulted during her life, and 67 percent of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Natives.

Currently, the federal laws surrounding violent crimes create difficulties in dealing with non-Native perpetrators on native lands.

According to the Supreme Court ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), tribal courts do not hold any jurisdictional powers over non-American Indians and Alaska Natives and therefore cannot prosecute or punish them for their crimes on reservations. Additionally, the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 limits the maximum punishment for any crime to a $5,000 fine and up to one year in prison.

 Walker, who is Cree from Okanese First Nation in Canada, has made it her life’s work as a journalist to tell the stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women. “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” marks not only her first story with Gimlet Media but also the first U.S. case of a missing Indigenous woman that she’s investigated. 

  The podcast, “Stolen: The Search for Jermain,” is the first release since her acclaimed series “Missing and Murdered.”

“Stolen: The Search for Jermain” focuses on the case of a missing Indigenous woman, Jermain Charlo, in Montana, who was out one evening at a bar in Missoula and never made it home. Over the course of eight episodes, Walker is on the ground in real time tracking down leads through the dense mountains of the Flathead Reservation, all while examining what it means to be an Indigenous woman in America, as Jermain was.

Stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. have long gone uncovered by mainstream media, and Walker hopes to change that. For added perspective, the statistics on violence against Indigenous women in the U.S. are alarming — according to the Indian Law Resource Center: 

• More than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence
• More than 1 in 2 have experienced sexual violence 
• On some reservations, Indigenous women are murdered at more than ten times the national average

 In the podcast, Walker exposes a human-rights crisis and shares the personal tragedy of Jermain Charlo. During the podcast's eight episodes, Walker exposes the utter lack of awareness about the ongoing and rampant violence against indigenous women, the law enforcement failures and the legal hurdles endemic to any prosecution.  

 As an Indigenous woman herself -- Cree from Okanese First Nation in Canada -- Connie hopes this podcast amplifies this epidemic of violence against Indigenous women that’s gone uncovered by the mainstream media for far too long.  

 Source: Adrianna Paidas

by

Frank Racioppi