‘This alert is her scream’: new system would help locate missing Indigenous women

A program in Washington state is intended to trigger an effective search and raise awareness of the problem

Four years ago, Debra Lekanoff was busy traveling across the nation in her role as governmental affairs director for the Swinomish Tribe when her daughter came to her, worried.

The 14-year-old had just learned some of the troubling details of the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and was concerned that her mother, who is Alaska Native and tended to travel alone, might one day not make it home.