AFAD 25 Years Video Teaser

This AFAD video teaser is an opening salvo of the yearlong campaign and fight Against Enforced Disappearances and for the Protection, not Persecution, of Human Rights Defenders, across Asia.

a continuing crime
a disappearing act

What's Happening

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), together with its Indonesian member organizations: the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of
Violence (KontraS) and the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (IKOHI), stands in solidarity with workers, students, and citizens across Indonesia who are facing violent repression for exercising their democratic rights.

On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) stands in solidarity with families of the disappeared across Asia. For decades, enforced disappearance has been used to silence dissent, criminalize human rights defenders, and instill fear in communities. It remains one of the gravest crimes committed by states, leaving families in perpetual anguish, trapped between hope and despair.

Today, on International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, eight human rights and civil society organizations highlight the systematic failure of the Pakistani authorities to stop enforced disappearance and provide truth, justice and reparations to victims and families of the disappeared in Pakistan.

The last fifty years has been turbulent, even traumatic for Sri Lanka. Two uprisings in the South led by Sinhala youth (1971, 1987-89) and a 30-year civil war led by separatist Tamil groups in the North wreaked havoc on the country. While there is no official total count of the killings or disappearances, the estimated figure could be as high as 150,000 to 200,000.

The Federation

AFAD map