Victims of enforced disappearances need urgent responses, concerted action: Experts

UN and regional human rights experts today (29 August) urged all actors to join forces immediately to support victims of enforced disappearance and ensure that their rights and obligations as codified in regional and international treaties and other legal instruments become a reality for all.

"Victims of enforced disappearance include any individual who has suffered harm as a direct result. They still face unbearable challenges, and impunity prevails. We renew our solidarity with victims of enforced disappearance, as well as organisations, human rights defenders and lawyers that support them," they said in a joint statement.

Despite ongoing attempts to search for truth, justice and reparation, and even with the specialised national, regional and international frameworks in place, victims and those that support them are too often met with silence, or with the rejection of their allegations.

"Clear commitments and action plans remain necessary," said the experts.

Progress can be achieved when all concerned parties work together. The forthcoming World Congress on Enforced Disappearances, which will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on 15 and 16 January 2025, presents a crucial opportunity to bring States, victims and their representative organisations, national human rights institutions and experts together to find actionable solutions to eliminate and prevent enforced disappearances and promote the universal ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearances.

"The World Congress will allow us to identify and adopt concrete actions to address these concerns and pledge to implement them under our respective mandates," said the experts.

They encourage all actors involved in the fight against enforced disappearances to make the most of this event and to commit to concrete action.

"On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, we reiterate our shared commitment to assisting victims worldwide and our call for collective action to end this scourge, once and for all," they said.

The UN experts are Aua Baldé (Chair-Rapporteur), Gabriella Citroni (Vice-Chair); Grażyna Baranowska, and Ana-Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; Juan Pablo Albán Alencastro (Rapporteur), Mohammed Ayat, Matar Diop (Vice Chair), Olivier de Frouville (Chair), Suela Janina, Fidelis Kanyongolo, Milica Kolakovic-Bojovic (Vice Chair), Barbara Lochbihler, Horacio Ravenna (Vice Chair), and Carmen Rosa Villa Quintana, of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances.

Regional Human Rights Experts are Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Hon. Idrissa Sow (Chairperson), Working Group on Death Penalty, Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings, African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights; Yuyun Wahyuningrum, Representative of Indonesia and Prof Dr Amara Pongsapich, Representative of Thailand of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights; and Michael O' Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.