Enforced Disappearance
Enforced disappearances constitute a cluster of serious human rights violations with an enormous impact not only on the people directly affected but also on the community and social sphere. In some countries, its practice is so widespread that it has become a real challenge for coexistence and reconciliation.
Even though states have a legal obligation to prevent and investigate enforced disappearances, hundreds of thousands of cases everywhere remain unsolved. In these contexts, the families – especially wives, sisters and daughters – of the missing persons assume search functions, often in conditions of danger and precariousness. Their demands for truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition have triggered large mobilizations against violence and have promoted a culture of peace.
ICIP has set itself the goal of deepening, together with women seekers, the conceptualization of the link between the fight against enforced disappearances and the construction of peace, valuing the contributions of family groups in peacebuilding and collecting and transferring knowledge and tools that can strengthen their struggles.
Work with women seekers
In November 2023, the ICIP organized a meeting in Barcelona with searchers of missing persons from different social, cultural and geographical contexts. The meeting responded to the objective of creating a space to share experiences and knowledge, to reflect on the role of search engines in building peace, to propose tools that facilitate and strengthen the work of peacebuilding, to give visibility to the phenomenon of disappearances enforced disappearances and the need to have prevention mechanisms and mechanisms to give effect to the rights to truth, justice and reparation, and to collect observations for the World Congress on Enforced Disappearances that is expected to be held in 2025 in Geneva.
