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International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances: Victims of Enforced Disappearances require urgent responses and concerted action: Forthcoming World Congress offers unique opportunity, experts say

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30 August 2024

To mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Representatives of Indonesia and Thailand to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights call on all stakeholders to unite in the fight against enforced disappearances and to take part in the upcoming World Congress to work on concrete action plans to end this heinous crime. They issued the following joint statement today: “We renew our solidarity with victims of enforced disappearance, that include any individual who has suffered harm as a direct result of this heinous crime, as well as organisations, human rights defenders and lawyers that support them. These dedicated parties work tirelessly, often in hostile and dangerous environments, to search for the disappeared, and to bring them home. Unfortunately, in many cases, their efforts are met with silence or with the rejection of their allegations. Despite their ongoing attempts to search for truth, justice and reparation, and even with the specialised national, regional and international frameworks in place, many victims of enforced disappearances still face unbearable challenges, and impunity prevails. All involved actors must join forces immediately to support them and ensure that the rights and obligations established in the regional and international treaties and other legal instruments, become a reality for all.
Practical experience shows that more progress can be achieved when all concerned work together.
Clear commitments and action plans remain necessary, and the forthcoming World Congress on Enforced Disappearances, which will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on 15 and 16 January 2025, is a crucial opportunity in this regard.
This first-ever World Congress on Enforced Disappearances is a multi-actor initiative that gathers States, victims and their representative organizations, and experts from the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the Convention against Enforced Disappearances Initiative (CEDI). It is a unique platform to find actionable solutions to eliminate and prevent enforced disappearances, to promote the universal ratification and implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, and to strengthen cooperation to ensure that disappeared people and their relatives are at the core of any actions taken.
We welcome the consultation process conducted in advance of the Congress. This process allowed key actors in each region to share their experiences and make concrete recommendations for the World Congress and the resulting action plan. They called for activities in advocacy, awareness-raising, memorialisation, provision of support to victims, capacity-building development, and the coordination and network-building to share experiences and best practices. Other recommendations were made to raise awareness about the mandates of human rights mechanisms, and to strengthen the link and coordination between the work in the field and at regional and global levels.
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. We encourage all actors involved in the fight against enforced disappearances to make the most of this event and to commit to concrete action.
Our everyday work unfortunately demonstrates that enforced disappearances remain a daily reality in many parts of the world, and that the victims usually do not find the answers they need. Supporting them must always be at the core of our work. 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.”