Impact of Fossil Fuel Industry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls | Indigenous Environmental Network

25.5.18

Impact of Fossil Fuel Industry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls | Indigenous Environmental Network: Construction of pipelines and other fossil fuel projects often brings an influx of male workers to rural areas near small towns and Reservations, where they live in “man camps” disconnected from the surrounding community. In North Dakota, a surge in rates of violent crime and aggravated assault have correlated with the Bakken “oil boom” and the subsequent arrival of thousands of new workers to the region. The state had at least 125 cases of missing Native women, though numbers are likely much higher because data is not officially collected. A study from the Lake Babine and Nak’azdli nations, in BC, Canada, found that such camps are associated with increased rates of sexual assault and violence against Indigenous women.

Indigenous women are murdered at staggering rates, according to recent reports. While Native women made up less than 5% of the total female population in Canada in 2015, they comprised one quarter of all murdered women in the country that same year, according to a study by Statistics Canada. In the U.S., the CDC reports that homicide was the third leading cause of death for Native women and girls age 10-24 in 2014. Yet few government resources have supported efforts to combat this gruesome reality. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies continue to expand while their profits pile-up.

If Keystone XL is constructed, three man camps would be built near treaty and unceded territory of the Yankton Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes.