Fair pay for women is group’s first goal

Posted by Pauly Denetclaw | Jul 20, 2018 | Business |

WINDOW ROCK

Native women working off the reservation make 53 cents to every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men make.

“It’s a really important issue, as we’ve been looking at the state statistics in New Mexico, because 43 percent of households are headed by women with children,” said Pamelya Herndon, the executive director for the Southwest Women’s Law Center.

This is why the SWLC has made it a priority to reach out to Native women in the Gallup area. They are rescheduling their Native Women’s Equal Pay workshop in Gallup and will possibly add other locations like Farmington.

The Native Women’s Equal Pay workshop is part of a larger move for the Gallup area. In the future the city will be home to the Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, which will be under the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center that’s located in Montana.

The group is also planning to have smaller centers throughout the state.

“The idea for the Indigenous Women’s Resource Center is to be available for Indigenous women throughout the state to work on issues and to look at issues that are affecting them,” Herndon said.

SWLC is helping to establish the Indigenous Women’s Resource Center in Gallup. The group has already created a board of directors who identified four key issues that Native women face – domestic violence, missing and murdered Indigenous women, human trafficking and equal pay.

Right now, they’re working on all the key issues but have been trying to hold workshops on equal pay and trying to get information to the community about laws that ensure fair pay.