‘Stolen Sisters’ acrylic on canvas 100cm X 120cm. Today, May 5th is National Day of Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) also known as ‘stolen sisters’ and marked by a painted handprint on the face.

Indigenous women, girls and two spirited people in the US and Canada are up to 12 times more likely to go missing or murdered, and cases are far less likely to be investigated than those of white women victims. Indigenous areas are typically under funded by the government and have next to no policing resources making them a target.

Etched into the plains of my painting are references to genocide, ‘Columbus brought syphylis’, ‘Custer was a rapist’, ‘not your Pocohontas’, ‘Standing Rock’ and the current ‘man camps’ around reservations today.

According to the National Crime Information Center, in 2016, 5,712 missing indigenous women and girls were reported, but only 116 cases were logged by the US Department of Justice’s federal missing person database.

Covid-19 deaths are being neglected from official figures and believed to be exacerbated by not only the lack of government healthcare facilities in indigenous areas but the present of man camps.

Today the oil industry has brought man camps which are having the same devastating effects as Columbus and Custer, destruction of the environment, abuction, murder, sex trafficking and disease.

From smallpox to reservations to pipelines to MMIWG, it seems the genocide continues today.

Purchase ‘Stolen Sisters’ prints here