Forced Disappearances and the Inequalities of a Global Crime

Abstract

Despite international conventions and legislation, evermore frequently we witness the hundreds of thousands of people arrested, detained and abducted against their will from across all sorts of life and geographical contexts (i.e., journalists in Yemen, human rights defenders in Pakistan or campaigners in Myanmar.) By definition, enforced disappearances occur when three elements combine: deprivation of liberty against the will of the person; involvement of government officials, at least by acquiescence; and a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person (UNGA, 2010). In practice, however, forced disappearances are the outcome of complex and intertwined factors, usually involving unaccountable parties avoiding enforceable legislation (Rozema, 2011). Against this backdrop, researchers have begun to pay greater attention to state and non-state sanctioned disappearances. This commentary surveys recent data on enforced disappearance and suggests ways to help expand the knowledge frontier. Iron-fist security restrictions implemented worldwide (and more so in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic) have seemingly catalysed dehumanising forms of routinised and often authorised violence. From 2012 to 2020, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has received 895 requests for urgent action concerning incidents in member states, with moth of them coming from Iraq, Mexico, Colombia and Honduras. In a vast number of cases, family members, close contacts or representatives of the disappeared persons blame the poor and ineffective search and investigation strategies put up by the public authorities (UNGA, 2020). The extent of the problem is wide and far reaching. Disappearances in cross-border contexts, for example, reveal states’ failure to protect asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced and stateless persons. In Syria, from March 2011 to August 2019, at least 144,889 individuals were detained or forcibly disappeared by the main actors at conflict, that is, the regime forces, militias, Islamist groups, factions of the opposition, and foreign criminals and combatants (SNHR, 2019). Migrants and refugees exiting Central American countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala heading north to Mexico and the United States also disappear. Many times, migrants are exposed to violent situations, including the death, forced disappearance, and kidnapping of relatives. They are also threatened with extortion, and many have been previous victims of assault and torture (Doctors Without Borders, 2020). It is estimated that more than 5500 people have disappeared in the United State-Mexico border since the mid-1990s, along many more found dead on their attempts to cross “dangerous wilderness, perilous