Cortez Masto Announces $1.5 Million in Grants for Native American Tribes to Address Violence Against Indigenous Women

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) today announced that the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California would receive a total of $1.5 million to help respond to violent crimes against Indigenous women.

“Women and girls in Native communities have been living in an epidemic of violence for far too long. This funding will allow the Pyramid Lake Paiute and Washoe Tribes to address violence against Indigenous women with resources from their own communities. I’ll keep working in the Senate to ensure we fulfill our trust responsibility to Indian Country in Nevada.”

The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe will receive $600,000, and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California will receive $900,000 to fund programs that deter and prosecute violence against women and that are consistent with tribal law and customs.

These grants from the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Tribal Governments Program are aimed at:

• Decreasing the incidence of violent crime against Indigenous women;
• Strengthening the capacity of Native American tribes to exercise their sovereign authority to respond to violent crimes committed against Indigenous women; and
• Ensuring that perpetrators of violent crimes committed against Indigenous women are held accountable.

Senator Cortez Masto is one of the strongest champions for Native Americans in the Senate. Working across the aisle with Senator Murkowski (R-Alaska), she has led efforts to combat the dangerous epidemic of missing, murdered, and trafficked Indigenous women and girls by introducing the Not Invisible Act and Savanna’s Act, which both passed the Senate on unanimous, bipartisan votes and were signed into law in October 2020. These laws work to improve data collection on missing Native women, create standard guidelines for responding to these crimes, and strengthen coordination between federal agencies, law enforcement, tribal leaders, and survivors to protect Indigenous women.