CHICAGO—The wait continues with the Task Force on Missing and Murdered Chicago Women or House Bill 3988 which was approved earlier this year. Its purpose is to discover and analyze why Black women and girls go missing and often murdered at higher rates than any other race in Chicago.
The task force is set to be effective January 1, 2023. According to the Illinois General Assembly website, which keeps up-to-date information on the status and developments of Illinois House bills and legislation, members for the task force have yet to be assigned.
When assigned, their job will be to examine and report on the systemic causes behind violence that Chicago women and girls experience, include underlying historical, social economic, institutional, and cultural factors that may contribute to the violence. The task force is also to appropriate methods for tracking and collecting data on violence against Chicago women and girls; and report and examine measures necessary to address and reduce violence and the measures to help victims, victims’ families and victims’ communities.
Activist Miracle Boyd of Good Kids Mad City told The Final Call that it will only help if the task force is dedicated to getting justice for missing and murdered women. “The task force should speak to community members, families, and organizations that are doing the work to uplift the missing and murdered women and what we know as far as safety in our communities. Justice is more than a conviction, families need closure,” she said.
Ms. Boyd and other community organizations held a “We Walk for Her” march during the summer to raise awareness of the dozens of women and girls who go missing each year in Chicago. It was their fifth march.
The Final Call reached out to several Illinois state representatives and state senators who supported the legislation but received no responses by presstime.
The task force will meet at least four times a year starting January 1 and will send their findings to the General Assembly and Governor J.B. Pritzker.
