Miami – The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a program to boost law enforcement efforts to solve missing persons cases involving Black women and girls, addressing a long-running disparity in the female population.

The Black community has expressed outrage over white women and girls reported missing getting more media and law enforcement attention than missing Black women and girls feared murdered as well.

Some Black journalists and civil rights leaders call the disparity the “White Woman Syndrome.”

The White Woman Syndrome has become a crisis for the Black community which blames law enforcement for lacking efforts to find missing Black women and girls.

They point to most missing persons cases for Black females that were never solved in comparison to their white counterparts whose files were successfully closed at a higher rate The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is now focusing on tackling the crisis of missing or murdered Black women and girls and called a national emergency meeting in November 2024 in Washington, D.C.

The meeting brought together family members, survivors, law enforcement, advocates, journalists and government leaders to raise awareness of missing Black women and girls.

The Department of Justice also announced immeasurable resources for law enforcement including the FBI to mount all-out efforts to solve the missing persons cases for Black women and girls. According to the department,

Kimberly Arrington was 16 when she disappeared in 1998, and her father still waits for her to come home.

Black women and girls are disproportionately affected by abduction, violence, trafficking, and systemic neglect, leading to high rates of their disappearance, and placing them at greater risk of homicide.

Although they make up a significant portion of missing person cases in the U.S., their stories often go underreported and unnoticed by national media and law enforcement.

According to the National Crime Information Center, in 2022, of the 271,493 girls and women reported missing, 97,924, or over 36 percent, were Black, even though Black women and girls comprised only 14 percent of the U.S. female population at the time.

"Raising public awareness is a critical first step in addressing this epidemic. Media outlets play a pivotal role in shaping narratives and mobilizing public interest," said Linda A. Seabrook, an author and former project director for Victim Services for the National Center for Victims of Crimes in Washington, D.C. "Too often, cases involving Black women and girls do not receive the same level of attention as those involving white victims. Missing Black women and girls rarely make the evening news or become a household name with nightly national coverage."

Seabrook suggested the epidemic of missing or murdered Black women and girls pales in comparison to missing persons cases for white women and girls, and the victims’ family members are often left distraught over less media coverage and law enforcement attention for their loved ones.

"Despite the devastating impacts on families and communities throughout the country, the epidemic of missing or murdered Black women and girls has largely remained a silent one," she said. "It is time to confront this issue with the urgency and coordinated response it warrants."

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, about 613,000 people reported missing in the U.S. in 2023, 60 percent were Black.

Although Black women make up less than 7 percent of the U.S. population, they represent about 10 percent of all missing persons cases throughout the country.

The Black and Missing Foundation said the total number of black women and girls who went missing was 64,000 since 2022.

Sex trafficking, domestic violence and abuse, mental health conditions that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and kidnapping are among the several reasons people go missing.

According to the New York Amsterdam News, many missing persons cases involving Black women and girls in the state have never been solved, dating back to the 1970s.

In 1978, Ethel Atwell was never found after she was reportedly abducted outside her workplace on Staten Island.

If she’s still alive, she would be 90 years old today.

In 2008, four-month-old Selah Lee Davis was reported missing after her mother and brother abducted her in Rochester and fled in a vehicle enroute to the Bronx.

The police later found the vehicle abandoned and Selah’s family never saw her again.

In a recent case, Marshae Ivey, 19year-old Black mother, was last seen in May 2021 in Rochester, New York, wearing a black hoodie with pink leggings.

Law enforcement mostly relies on tips from the public and circulates missing persons posters hoping to generate leads but most never pan out.

In the past 30 years, most Black women reported missing and never been found lived in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, and in rural communities in North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama.

According to the Montgomery Advertiser, in Montgomery, Alabama, seven black women have been identified as missing since as far back as 1998, four of whom were abducted between the ages of 16 and 21, and one who remains unlisted in both the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s database.

They include 16-year-old Kimberly Arrington who was last seen in October 1998 at a pharmacy, and despite the FBI’s effort to locate her, she is still missing; LaQuanta Riley. 19, disappeared after witnesses saw her being forced into a car in 2003 near her home, and she has never been found; and 21-yearold Aubrina Mack was last seen in 2006 after taking a walk and never returned home. Mack left behind two children.