- Category: The Voice
In the struggle against enforced disappearances women throughout the world have pioneered the cause. Whether it is the mothers of the disappeared in Latin America, or the wives of the disappeared in Asia, or the
sisters and daughters of the victims of enforced disappearances globally, the world has witnessed the immensely courageous fight by the women family members of the disappeared.
- Category: The Voice
Twenty-one years ago, the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND) in the Philippines, together with representatives from different regions (Latin America, Africa, Asia), conceptualized the formation of a regional federation to fight against the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Asia.A year later, FIND sought consultations with the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir and Organization of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD) in Sri Lanka in 1998.
- Category: The Voice
The year 2018 brings forth the 20th anniversary of Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD). In a span of two decades, the tragic reason for which AFAD came into existence has not changed for the better, but in fact worsened. Indeed, AFAD’s existence became even more and more a necessity as the scourge of Enforced Disappearance (ED) impacted more countries in Asia. In countries where the phenomenon of ED existed during the formation of AFAD, involuntary disappearances unabatedly continue. In few countries where such human rights violation is considered merely a crime of the past, the governments are yet to acknowledge their responsibility to it.
- Category: The Voice
Since time immemorial, people have been struggling for their rights and the rights of their family members of fellow citizens. In the modern era, those fighting for the rights of others are called human rights defenders. It has never been easy to struggle for human rights in the discourse of Member States of the UN. Human rights defenders have always been the priority of States to make efforts to protect these voices of dissent or the voices for human rights. Long after the evolution of International Humanitarian Law, the framework for the protection of human rights defenders found resonance in the discourse of Member States of the UN, When in 1984 the UN began the elaboration of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
- Category: The Voice
Unlike in some countries where the number of cases of enforced disappearances and other forms of human rights violations is decreasing, Asian states are witnessing an upsurge in new cases. It is quite unfortunate that we do not have many examples of ways to solve this problem in Asia, which the governments can follow to end the vicious cycle of impunity.
In the Philippines, former president Ferdinand Marcos’ Martial Law had ended but the phenomenon of enforced disappearance has not. Suharto’s dictatorship in Indonesia had also collapsed but Aceh and West Papua continue to witness enforced disappearances. Nepal has seen an end to its armed conflict, yet the leaders who swore to protect freedom and democracy deny the people of justice. Sri Lanka has seen 60,000 people disappeared over the last several years. The Bangladeshi government claims to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of crimes committed in the 1971 war for independence, but its hands are also drenched with the blood of its own people. South Korea demands justice for the transgressions of North Korea, but hardly sees anything outside of it. In Kashmir, disappearances continue and India still refuses to tell the truth about the 8,000 people disappeared and has yet to prosecute perpetrators.