MMIW billboards go up in Montana to raise awareness, including Havre

Jen Buckley, an enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe and Havre High School graduate, is putting up billboards around Montana including one in Havre to raise awareness of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.

The billboard in Havre went up last week and depicts a young Native American woman and asks how many have to disappear before people start to notice.

Buckley said the goal of the project is to get people who don't know about the subject asking questions and make it impossible for people who do know to forget about it.

"People have to start talking about this," she said.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Native Americans account for more than 25 percent of the missing person cases in the state of Montana despite being less than 7 percent of the population.

Native Americans, especially Native American women, go missing at extremely high rates compared to any other race or ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada and face staggeringly high rates of homicide, abuse and sexual violence, many times that of white women.

This disproportionate rate of violence has been attributed to a number of issues, including the historical legal inability of tribes to prosecute on their own reservation when the perpetrator is non-Native, confusion regarding jurisdiction between tribal, state and federal law enforcement, and a lack of resources on the part of tribal police departments, as well as the general economic and social marginalization of Native Americans.

Accurate statistics on missing persons cases can be difficult to obtain due to the before-mentioned lack or resources of tribal police departments, as well as frequent errors by non-native police departments, misclassifying Native Americans as another race.

Buckley said she's never experienced the issue first hand, but the disappearance of Jermain Charlo, a 23-year-old mother of two who police say was last seen in 2018 in downtown Missoula, hit her hard.

She said she didn't know Charlo personally, but as a Missoula resident and a Native American the case disturbed her deeply.

"It feels personal, I mean it's our people," she said. "How people aren't outraged, it just saddens me."

Buckley said she went on a few searches for Charlo and, despite that case getting more press than usual, she realized that the subject needs to be talked about more in the U.S. at large, not just in Montana.

"It just struck me in a way," she said. "... It just hit my soul in a way that can never be undone until we bring her home, whatever that means."

It's disturbing that a woman can just be walking around downtown, she added, and then they're just gone and no one has any idea what happened.

Many of these billboards depict Native American women, some in full tribal regalia, with a red handprint over their mouths, a common symbol of the issue.

Buckley, who owns Tveraa Photography, said she's been working with Lamar Advertising, which has donated space for many of these billboards while she covers production costs, and she's very thankful for their willingness to help.

She said she's working on a another series of billboards that she's hoping to set up in Polson this July, but she ultimately wants to expand the project to the entire U.S.

"People have to notice it because it's in their face," she said. "You know, pamphlets and flyers get lost, you can't really lose a billboard," she said.

Buckley said she's also hoping to recruit people who want to sponsor a billboard for a month or hang the photos the billboards are made from in their businesses.

She said any money generated goes directly to more billboards or a to the Snowbird Fund which gives direct financial assistance to Native American families to help search for their loves ones.

She said she's already gotten calls from people who want to support the project, as well as people who had no idea about the situation and had questions.

Buckley said she's getting in touch with other advertising companies and providing education on the issue before asking them to support it. She said some have offered help while others haven't, and she's looking for as many people as possible to help her get the word out.

Buckley, who is also a felony parole officer, said she only has so much time in her life and she's always looking for assistance.

"I just need people who want to get on board," she said.

She said she's hoping to get out-of-Montana billboards up by the end of the year, but she's already getting calls from people in Canada, so she's encouraged.

Buckley said people interested in the project, obtaining photos for their businesses, or who want to make donations can go to her Tveraa Photography Facebook page.

She said she understands how chaotic and busy life is, and how many issues to think about people already have, but she thinks people need to be pulled out of life for just for a little while to realize what is going on.

"This can't be the hot topic of the minute that fades," she said.