Forced Disappearance: What Is It?

Some events are so painful that they struggle to fit a name. Some are difficult to accept, partly because we are unable to process them. Today we are talking about enforced disappearance, one of the many human rights violations that harm us.

Imagine that the person you love most in the world disappears, how would you feel? Undoubtedly it would be difficult to continue to live, to grow in the different areas of life. What if a long time has passed and there is still no news?

This is the world of enforced disappearance. We will show you what it is, what valuable coping strategies are emerging to help accept a pain that does not subside, and who is working to alleviate and prevent the consequences of this phenomenon.

Forced disappearance: what does it mean?

Forced disappearance is a concept that comes from the legal world. It is defined as “arrest, detention, kidnapping or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the state, by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state”.

Those who exercise it commit a serious violation of human rights. Those who suffer it disappear and those who remain live in anguish because they will never know what really happened to their loved one.

These people rarely return and if they do they usually suffer severe psychological and physical injuries. During their detention and if they suffer torture, they know that all traces of them have been lost and that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to help them.

The same anguish and uncertainty is experienced by relatives and friends. According to the United Nations, forced disappearance responds to three characteristics:

• Deprivation of liberty.
• Direct or indirect involvement of government agents.
• Refusal to disclose where the person is.

Organizations and initiatives against forced disappearance

Various organizations and initiatives have been created to combat the phenomenon of forced disappearance. Let’s see some of them:

• International Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Forced Disappearance UN. Its goal is to prevent the phenomenon, seek the truth, give support to family members, ensuring justice and reparation.

• Working group on forced and involuntary disappearances. It is responsible for ensuring that governments fulfill their obligation to help locate missing persons. It is the oldest special institution of the former Human Rights Commission.

• Committee against forced disappearances. It was established after the creation in 2010 of the International Convention on Forced Disappearance. It supports the Working Group and organizes activities to prevent and eradicate this phenomenon.

• Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. Member states undertake: not to tolerate enforced disappearance. Punish the perpetrators and cooperate to prevent and eradicate this phenomenon.

Finally, there are various local groups, which act above all with the support of leaders and organizations for the protection of victims. Even so, the disappearance remains an alarming phenomenon that continues to repeat itself.

How to deal with forced disappearance?

Before talking about coping strategies, let’s see in the following lines what are the consequences of forced disappearance:

• Fear. The feeling of insecurity and fear limits the lives of family members and people close to the missing.

• Conditioning : of close people, of the community and of society.

• Violation of rights: right to security; to dignity; not to suffer torture or other cruel punishments; to be able to enjoy humane conditions of detention; right to family life; right to life; to a fair trial, etc.

• Pain that has no name. It is difficult for victims to express their emotions in words. After the trauma there remains a scar that leads to reliving the pain over and over again.

Building a disappearance story, a narrative that the person can live with is not an easy task. However, this can be worked on. This type of work and most coping strategies are based on the principle of resilience.

Possible therapeutic paths

There are several paths that can be taken and fortunately resilience can be learned. For example, it can be done through psychotherapy or through community activities that help victims feel supported; to reconstruct a narrative to be integrated into personal history.

The goal is for the experience to become an anchor, a strength rather than a stone that plunges the person into the ocean of negative emotions (sadness, fear, anger, etc.)

Another therapeutic path proposed to the victims is that of art. Through the creative path it is possible to manage the anguish and give a name to that pain that is difficult to process. Naming it means putting into words the chaos of emotions, perceptions and thoughts; this will help them manage the lived experience.

There are several researches that have offered useful methods to manage the anguish caused by enforced disappearances. An example is the study of Gabriel Gatti (University of the Basque Country).

His proposals arise above all from the analysis of the disappearances in Argentina and Uruguay. The strategy of the Basque sociologist is to speak of the impossibility of speaking of what is called noisy silence; to force language to its limits, giving life to what it calls serious parody.

Another example is that of the Cunningham Dax Collection, in collaboration with the Jewish Holocaust Center in Melbourne which organized an exhibition with the works of Holocaust survivors together with the families of the victims; the aim was to favor the transformation of trauma through art.

It is desirable to continue to create initiatives aimed both at processing the trauma and at preventing enforced disappearances. We hope that social protest does not fall on deaf ears, that we leave our homes only voluntarily, and that it no longer happens to anyone not to know what happened to a loved one.