Defenders Coalition joins partners of Missing Voices to commemorate the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances. The day is marked on 30 September of every year to bring to light the plight of victims of enforced disappearances, the suffering of their families and degradation of members of the communities within which they live.

Under the auspices of the Missing voices, the Defenders Coalition highlighted online some of the cases that the consortium has documented over the years using a hashtag #WakoWapi and #EndEnforcedDisappearanceNow.

The activities for the day also involved engaging duty bearers within the security sector- due to investigations from the documentations always pointing a finger at them as the prime perpetrators of enforced disappearance. 

WHAT IS ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE

According to the United Nations, a person is said to have been forcefully disappeared when: 

“persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”

The enforced disappearance is a CRIME and is complex in nature. While not being a condition for the crime of enforced disappearance, victims of enforced disappearance are subjected to severe harm and suffering during the period of their disappearance as a result of being placed outside the protection of the law.

The following civil or political rights may be infringed upon in the course of a disappearance: 

•  The right to recognition as a person before the law; • The right to liberty and security of the person; 
• The right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; 
• The right to life, when the disappeared person is killed;
•  The right to an identity;
• The right to a fair trial and to judicial guarantees;
• The right to an effective remedy, including reparation and compensation; 
• The right to know the truth regarding the circumstances of a disappearance.

The serious economic hardships which usually accompany a disappearance are most often borne by women, and it is women who are most often at the forefront of the struggle to resolve the disappearance of family members. In this capacity they may suffer intimidation, persecution and reprisals. When women are themselves direct victims of disappearance, they become particularly vulnerable to sexual and other forms of violence.

In Kenya, there is a high prevalence towards the forceful disappearance of male youth living in informal settlements and coastal regions of Kenya. Cases of bundling up of poor youth being bundled into the back of cars with plain cloth security personnel and never to be seen again are reported almost on a weekly basis.

Read some of the stories on the victims and families of the victims here

https://missingvoices.or.ke/mvoicesarticle/man-mysteriously-disappears-in-police-custody/

https://missingvoices.or.ke/mvoicesarticle/forcefully-disappeared-without-a-trace/

https://missingvoices.or.ke/mvoicesarticle/mother-cries-for-son-missing-four-years-after-police-arrest/

read other stories here

https://missingvoices.or.ke/media-center/