The epidemic of violence against Indigenous women reaches back beyond the beginnings of the United States as a nation. We now recognize how sexual violence has been deployed against Indigenous communities as a tactic of genocide. In recent history, we’ve made small moves to begin addressing this violence – like increasing protections for Indigenous women in the Violence Against Women Act.

Now, following tireless activism by Indigenous communities, the federal government is taking significant action to address these issues.

In October 2020, two bills seeking to address violence against Indigenous