Indigenous women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average.
Stolen Sisters is a photo series to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). The women I photographed are not missing or murdered, however, they are all affected by this epidemic.
The MMIW movement was first catalyzed by Indigenous women protesting man camps. Man camps are temporary housing units built by extractive industries, such as fossil fuels, typically for non-Indigenous, non-local workers in rural areas bordering on or near Indian reservations. Man camps often span the colonial borders of the United States and Canada. Nearby Indigenous communities or border towns experience increased incidences of violence, robberies, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Some border towns near man camps have documented a 30% increase in human trafficking and sexual assaults four times the U.S. national average.
