30 August 2026: International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

Imagine a knock at the door, and a loved one disappears without a trace. For thousands of families around the world, this is not a nightmare, but a lived reality. A tool of terror that manifests itself as a hidden crime, leaving behind a loud silence that can definitely not be mistaken for a peaceful stillness of rest. A lot more blood has been spilt in this architecture of absence than the ink it took to define the act itself. Enforced disappearance erases a person twice; first by taking away their physical body, and second by silencing their voices.

Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) defines enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction, or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places such a person outside the protection of the law.” Victims of enforced disappearance are often subjected to severe mistreatment, and their families are left in anguish, unsure of the missing person’s fate. This trauma builds emotional turmoil and potential financial distress for these families.

Global advocacy by international human rights groups over the years to address concerns about enforced disappearance led to the adoption of the ICPPED Convention in 2006, following the first text’s 1998 drafting by Louis Joinet for the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. However, two decades down the line, as the world marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the ICPPED Convention, these efforts have been reduced to pages in a book, headlines in a newspaper, or a commentary on a human rights advocacy group’s website as the crime continues to be perpetrated in all regions around the world. The Convention, though recognized by individual States, remains problematic in its implementation. This is attributed to the governments’ use of enforced disappearance to suppress political dissent. Journalists, activists, and even children have not been spared in this wave of oppression. This begs the question of whose hands people are safe in.

Political dissent or calls for accountability have been largely met by extrajudicial killings, violence, intimidation, and enforced disappearance in different parts of the world. For example, in June 2024, during the Kenya Anti-Finance Bill protests, the Law Society of Kenya reported that at least 89 people were forcibly disappeared in connection with the country’s anti-Finance Bill protests. Additionally, Kenya’s Human Rights Commission observed that enforced disappearance increased by 450% in 2024. Although the number of documented cases of enforced disappearances have declined from the previous year, the persistence of such cases remains deeply concerning.

In Guinea last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for the release of a 75-year-old man reported to have been abducted as punishment for his son’s journalism. Currently, over 137 journalists have been reported missing worldwide, a third of whom are victims of enforced disappearance. These isolated cases, when jointly analyzed, indicate that enforced disappearance raises serious concerns to the international community as a whole and is not a matter squarely within the purview of the individual governments.

As of 2026, only 78 countries have ratified the ICPPED Convention in addition to 39 signatories.  On the 2026 International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, through a joint statement, various human rights bodies around the world called for the prioritization of all efforts to combat enforced disappearance, and the need for action without delay. Therefore, to restore social and political order, States and all stakeholders must remain steadfast in reaffirming the primacy of law over force as well as the centrality of victims over oblivion. This would inadvertently uphold the irreplaceable value of multilateralism and the international rule of law.

When the duty-bearer becomes the rights-violator, the system has failed. Therefore, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances goes beyond mourning. It is a call for justice, accountability and good governance.