- Category: Statements
You came to us as God’s precious gift
As a friend; a retreat master;
A co- rallyist during Marcos’ darkest years;
A good shepherd to the little ones of God’s flock;
A spiritual adviser and an ardent follower of Christ Jesus,
The Most Holy Redeemer....
- Category: Statements
A Call for Solidarity on the International Torture Survivors’ Day
26 June 2017
"... Most of them lived the rest of their lives in the detention centers, hooded or blindfolded, forbidden to talk to one another, hungry, living in filth. The center of their lives - dominating the memories of those who survived - was torture. They were tortured, almost without exception, methodically, sadistically, sexually, with electric shocks and near-drownings, [some burried to their necks and left in the sun and the rain for days. They were] constantly beaten, in the most humiliating possible way, not to discover information - very few had any information to give - but just to break them spiritually as well as physically, and to give pleasure to their torturers."[Ronald Dworkin, in the introduction to "Nunca Mas, Argentina "]
- Category: News
A two-day training session, mainly for the female relatives of Enforced Disappearance (ED) victims, was organised by Odhikar on the 19th and 20th of April, 2017 at the Caritas Development Institute Dhaka, Bangladesh. 17 relatives of the victims of ED participated in the training programme and amongst them 12 were women and five were men. As she was not able to keep her child somewhere else, one wife of a victim of ED brought her seven-year-old son to the programme as well. The training sessions were participatory, informative and also sensitive as some family members of victims were highly traumatised. The training sessions were conducted with the psychological conditions of the family members of the victims in mind.
- Category: Statements
4 June 2017 – Nineteen years ago, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) was founded in Manila, Philippines by the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND, Philippines), the Association of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (APDP, in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir) and the then Organization of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD, Sri Lanka).
Today, AFAD has grown into a Federation of 14 member-organizations from 10 countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste and with individual members in Laos and in Switzerland.
- Category: Statements
First commemorated by the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees (FEDEFAM) in the early 80s, the International Week of the Disappeared has been adopted by the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) to serve as a venue to campaign against this heinous crime and reaffirm its solidarity to all victims and their families.
- Category: Statements
- Category: Statements
Manila, 23 May 2017 – The Universal Period Review (UPR) of Indonesia took place on May 3, 2017, in Palais de Nations, in Geneva.
The review process was led by three member States of the UN Human Rights Council, namely Bangladesh, Belgium, and Ecuador.
- Category: Statements
As this year’s International Week of the Disappeared begins, we call upon the Philippine Government to end enforced disappearances and bring to justice all perpetrators of this grave human rights violation.