National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center

About The Company

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc. (NIWRC) is a Native-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children. The NIWRC provides national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.

Our staff and board of directors consist of Native women from throughout the United States with extensive experience and commitment to ending violence against Native women and their children. NIWRC’s staff bring decades of expertise in building the grassroots movement to increase tribal responses to domestic violence and increase safety for Native women.

Safety for a Native woman and her children depends in large part on whether the government in her geographic area has the authority and resources to effectively police, prosecute, punish crimes, and establish strong laws criminalizing violence against women. In most non-Indian communities, the county or city government has the authority to investigate and prosecute both misdemeanor and felony crimes against women. In Indian country, however, federal legislation, case law, and policies have left tribes with far less legal authority and resources to protect their citizens than any other local government. This effectively denies Native women access to justice and culturally appropriate services and subsequently prevents them from living free from violence. Through our work, NIWRC advocates nationwide to show that perpetrators can and will be held accountable and that Native women and their children are entitled to:

– Safety from violence within their homes and in their community
– Justice both on and off tribal lands
– Access to culturally grounded services designed by and for Native women