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The effect of an enforced disappearance on relatives
A disappearance of a person has a very deep effect on the lives of the people involved. For hundreds of thousands family members of disappeared persons in the world, living in a vacuum caused by the uncertainty about what happened to their family member is a daily torture. There can be no rest, no mourning, and no closure as long as the truth has not emerged. This search for the truth is extremely frustrating and painful, and family members are often completely alone in their despair. The sense of injustice is often exacerbated by the knowledge that nothing is undertaken to bring the presumed perpetrators to justice.
Families of disappeared persons need assistance in tracing the disappeared, in pressuring for truth and for justice. Family members of disappeared persons often end up being isolated from their social surroundings, and become victims of harassments and other human rights violations themselves. They also face psychological and social problems, as well as economic hardship (as the disappeared person is also often the breadwinner of the family). Families of disappeared persons are a particularly vulnerable group of persons who need support and assistance in many aspects of their struggle.
Organizations of family members of the disappeared
In many countries where people have disappeared, their family members have organised themselves into committees of relatives. The Mothers of the Plaza the Mayo of Argentina, for example, have become famous all over the world. After more than twenty years, these mothers are still looking for the truth about their disappeared children. To the original purposes of solidarity and mutual support for their struggle for truth, justice and redress, family organisations grew into the most fervent human rights defenders on this particular issue. These committees of relatives, or family member organisations, exist in almost every country where disappearances occurred. South Afirica, Lebanon, Algeria, Colombia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Belarus, Turkey, Chilli, Indonesia, Ingushetia, El Salvador, Iraq, Thailand, etc.
In Latin America, the committees of relatives are also organised on the regional level. The Latin American Federation of Committees of Relatives, FEDEFAM, was already established in 1981. Its Asian alter ego, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) saw the light in 1998 and the Euro Mediterranean Federation against Enforced Disappearances (FEMED) was founded 2007. The efforts to launch a pan-African network against disappearances (RADIF) have not fully materialised.
Family member organisations all over the world have in common that they are victim’s’ organisations that work for relatives that suffered the same tragedy of a disappeared loved one and work together in their search. They fight for the same cause. These common denominators make that the organisations of family members share a strong bond between them, but they are not all the same. They can differ in seize, structure, objectives, strategies and activities. Dependent on numerous circumstances, such as the political and security situation, time elapsed since the disappearances, available resources, international attention, background of the disappeared, family member organisations have developed themselves in different directions. Some focus more on justice to the perpetrators, others on financial compensations to the victims and again others on psycho- social support.
Objectives of the family organisations
Some of the objectives are the following:
- Find the disappeared, or at least obtain the truth about the disappearances
- Foster solidarity between families
- Provide real support to families and their organisations
- Promote the adoption of legal instruments for the protection from enforced disappearances
- Raise awareness on the issue of disappearances. Report on national and regional HR situations with regards to disappearances
- Campaign against Impunity
- Seek redress for the families
- Celebrate the memory of the disappeared
How can a family organisation help the relatives of the victim
Relatives of disappeared persons are at the forefront of the struggle against enforced disappearances. Relatives of disappeared pass from being victims to a realisation of being survivors. Activism against the practice of disappearance or the impunity of the authors is for the families of disappeared persons the only way to make any sense out of the injustice done to the disappeared loved one but also to the pain that is inflicted to them. The loss of their relative can only gain any meaning if the struggle for conserving the memory of the disappeared and for reminding the world of the sufferings caused by disappearances is successful. Activism is therefore a means to overcome the traumas of the families of the disappeared. But vice-versa, psychosocial assistance and due attention to the mental health conditions of the family members is a condition for achieving victories in the struggle against enforced disappearances.
Examples of activities of family member organisations:
- Psycho social support programs for victims
- Financial support for families whose breadwinner disappeared
- Monitoring and documenting cases
- Submit cases to courts at the national and international levelEstablish monuments for the disappeare
- Produce movies and books to educate people and keep the memory alive
- Lobby for domestic laws on disappearances, the international convention or a regional mechanism
- Commemorate the disappeared during special ceremonies
- Organise demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes