To mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforces Disappearances, international and regional Human Rights experts have called on States to end the practice of enforced disappearance.
The experts also task world leaders to take preventive measures and ensure adequate remedies for victims and proportionate punishment for perpetrators.
In a joint statement released on August 30, 2025, the experts stressed that enforced disappearance inflicts profound suffering on victims and violates their right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
They described enforced disappearances as a “serious violation of multiple human rights, inflicting profound suffering, experienced not only by those who are forcibly disappeared, but also by their families, their communities, and by society as a whole.”
According to the experts, disappearances are often used as a deliberate strategy to instil fear, suppress dissent, and punish communities, with the participation or acquiescence of State agents.
The statement underscored that enforced disappearance places victims outside the protection of the law, exposes them to grave risks, and violates rights to recognition before the law, liberty, security, and protection from torture. “It also constitutes a grave threat to the right to life,” the experts warned.
The psychological toll on relatives was highlighted as a form of ongoing torture. The experts noted, “the daily anguish of not knowing their fate and whereabouts, the fear of never seeing them again, as well as the silence, inaction, official indifference, and impunity that usually surround this crime, inflict on relatives, unimaginable pain and despair.” Women, they added, often bear a disproportionate burden, while children grow up in fear and uncertainty.
Calling for urgent action, the experts declared: “On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, we urgently call on all States to strengthen their policies to prevent and eradicate this crime and to guarantee the right of relatives of disappeared persons and society as a whole to know the truth about the fate and whereabouts of those forcibly disappeared, as well as access to justice and integral reparations.”
They reaffirmed solidarity with victims and urged States that have not yet ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearance and the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance to do so without delay.
The statement added: “Enforced disappearance is a wound that corrodes the fabric of society. It is a form of torture and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that must be condemned unequivocally, prevented and eradicated through collective action, effective prevention, accountability, and sustained support for victims, including through the implementation of the pledges made at the World Congress on Enforced Disappearances.”