WUNRN
UN News Service
UN - Tragedies of Enforced
Disappearances - Underreported
Profound Impacts on Women and
Children - Call for Truths & Justice
30 August 2009 – A group of United Nations independent
experts have highlighted the growing number of enforced disappearances worldwide,
a terrible practice that it says remains underreported and has a particular
impact on women and children.
In a statement to mark the International Day of the Disappeared, observed on 30 August, the UN Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances noted that it has dealt with over 50,000 cases since it was established in 1980.
But the practice “still remains severely underreported, particularly in certain regions of the world,” said the Group's Chairperson, Jeremy Sarkin.
In addition, while enforced disappearance affects many people worldwide, it has a particular impact on women and children, according to the five-member Group, which noted that women often bear the brunt of the economic hardships that accompany a disappearance.
It added that when women are victims of disappearance themselves, they are particularly vulnerable to sexual and other forms of violence. Also, the disappearance of a child, or the loss of a parent as a consequence of enforced disappearance, is a serious violation of the rights of the child.
The Group voiced its concern at the measures being taken by Governments while countering terrorism and the implications for enforced disappearances, and stressed that arrests committed during military operations, arbitrary detentions and extraordinary renditions “can amount to enforced disappearances.”
It also called once again on States that have not signed and/or ratified the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance to do so as soon as possible.
“Its entry into force will help strengthen Governments' capacities to reduce the number of disappearances and it will bolster the hopes and the demands for justice and truth by victims and their families,” stated the Group.
In addition to helping relatives ascertain the fate of their loved ones, the Working Group also acts as a conduit between the families and Governments concerned.
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WUNRN
http://www.wunrn.com
August 30 - International Day of the
Disappeared
ARGENTINA - HISTORY OF THE
GRANDMOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO
History of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo
Children Who Disappeared or Who Were Born in
Captivity
The
drama of children who disappeared in our country, the
These
children are the children of our children, who have also disappeared. Many
babies were kidnapped with their parents, some after their parents were killed,
and others were born in clandestine detention centers where their mothers were
taken after having been sequestered at different states of their pregnancies.
We, the
babies' grandmothers, tried desperately to locate them and, during these
searches, decided to unite. Thus, in 1977, the non-governmental organization
called Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo was established, dedicated
specifically to fighting for the return of our grandchildren. We also
relentlessly investigated our children's and grandchildren's disappearances, in
hopes of finding them.
As
mothers our search is two-folded because we are demanding the restitution of
our grandchildren while simultaneously searching for these children's parents,
our sons and daughters.
From the
moment that our children (often with our grandchildren in their wombs)
disappeared, we visited every court, office, orphanage, day care center, and so
on, to locate them. We appeared before the courts, the successive military
governments, the Supreme Court, and the ecclesiastical hierarchies, never
obtaining a positive result. We finally directed our claim to international
organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of American
States, again to no avail.
In 1977
we began our struggle with the claim for 13 children's restitutions. As of
August 2004, over 400 children have been recorded as missing. However, we know
that there are approximately 500 kidnapped children. In many cases, their
relatives did not declare such kidnappings, either due to ignorance of the
ability to do so or because they did not know that the mothers were pregnant at
the time of their disappearance.
The
disappeared children were deprived of their identity, their religion, and their
right to live with their family, in order words, all of the rights that are
nationally and internationally recognized as their universal human rights.
Our
demand is concrete: that the children who were kidnapped as a method of
political repression be restored to their legitimate families.
Procedures for the Search of Our
Grandchildren
Since
1976, we have pursued:
a.
Investigations at local and federal courts, including cases of
granted adoptions and also with regard to NN children (names unknown) who may
have been recorded at those courts.
b.
Investigations of all births registered in governmental offices
after the conclusion of the normal legal term for such registration.
c.
Beginning in 1997, we began informational campaigns to draw
young people (of an approximate age range of our grandchildren) that may have
doubts regarding their true identity to Abuelas. We have had very positive
results.
We
continually publish announcements in local newspapers read by individuals who
are aware of information relating to the kidnappings but who keep silent either
due to complicity or fear. In addition, we distribute posters and leaflets with
photographs and details of the disappearance of children.
When
reports are made, all information is filed into folders containing individual
accusations of each case, details of the disappearance, photographs of the
child and/or his/her parents, identification documents, and habeas corpus that
have been filed, among other information. Each person who makes the
denouncement signs all these documents. A certificate of the mother's pregnancy
is included, in a case where the detainee was pregnant, or a birth certificate
of the child, in the event that the child was kidnapped after birth.
In our
discourse, we make it clear that our grandchildren have not been abandoned;
they have the right to recover their roots and their history; they have
relatives who are constantly engaged in searching for them.
In the
30 years, we have been able to located 87 of the disappeared children,
including 4 found by governmental commissions and 2 located by CLAMOR, the
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in the Southern Cone.
Some of
the children are already living with their legitimate families and have become
perfectly integrated. Others are still living with the families that have
raised them, but are in close contact with their true grandmothers and
relatives. By being a part of two families, the children have recovered their
identity.
There is
a large number of disappeared children whose identities were completely
annulled. In those cases, we use modern science to prove that they are members
of a particular family. For this purpose, we rely on support from the
scientific community in the field of genetics, hematology, morphology, and
others.
Through
our participation and effort in the International Convention on the Rights of
the Child, we were able to push for the inclusion of articles 7, 8 and 11,
which refer to the right to an identity and are known as the "Argentine clauses."
This International Convention was later incorporated into the Argentine
Constitution, via law number 23,849.
In 1992, as a direct result of a petition we organized, the National Executive Power of our government created CONADI, the National Committee for the Right to Identity. The main objective of this organization is to assist young adults who doubt their identities by investigating all existing documents and referring them for blood analysis. Blood analyses are conducted by the National Bank of Genetic Data, which has the power to perform such analyses without legal intervention
______________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 3:32 PM
Subject: India-Kashmir - "Half-Widows" of Men Disappeared
in Conflict, Need Answers, More Support, Rights
WUNRN
|
India
- Kashmir's Half-Widows Struggle for Fuller Life |
|
01/14/07 |
|
By
Haroon Mirani |
|
The wives of men who have disappeared in India's Kashmir conflict gather each month holding photos of their husbands in a protest. The "half-widows" are unable to collect pensions or remarry without official word that their husbands are dead. |
|
SRINAGAR, India (WOMENSENEWS)--Nearly 17 years ago, Tahira Begum fought with her parents to marry her sweetheart, Tariq Ahmad Rather. The two families were not on good terms at the time, but in the end the marriage went through. Today she's fighting a very different battle: for help confirming that her husband, who disappeared while traveling on business to New Delhi in 2002, has been killed in the ongoing war in Kashmir, the disputed border region between India and Pakistan. Now 35, Begum became one of the thousands of Kashmir's "half-widows," wives whose husbands are lost in the limbo between missing and confirmed death. "From that time I have been visiting every police station and every army camp in the state for the hope of finding any clue," Begum says tearfully of her efforts to find her husband, a civil contractor with a federal hydroelectric company. She says some people said they saw her husband in army custody, but she has no proof of anything. Indian-administered Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. During the current insurgency, which started in 1989, many people have vanished, presumed killed or imprisoned without trial or record. The death toll in the current conflict amounts to somewhere between 40,000 and 90,000, depending on the source. During the last 15 years the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, an organization of the relatives of the disappeared in Kashmir, claims that about 10,000 people have been subjected to enforced disappearances by state agencies, mostly taken by armed personnel. Of the disappeared, they say between 2,000 and 2,500 people were married, and almost all were males. "There are organizations fighting for land, water, rights, money, freedom, et cetera," says Parveena Ahanger, chair of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, based in the Kashmiri summer capital of Srinagar. "We are fighting to obtain just a piece of information about the whereabouts of our disappeared relatives." Ahanger's son Javid Ahmad Ahanger was picked up by security forces on Aug. 18, 1990, when he was 16; since then she has not heard from him. India denies any connection to the abductions and says fewer than 1,000 people have disappeared. It says most of the missing have gone to the Pakistan-administered side of Kashmir for training in guerrilla warfare. The Indian administration has confirmed 135 such missing persons as dead. Seven-Year Limbo
The wives of the missing often can't remarry. Not only do they lack proof of being widowed, their observance of Islam often means they must wait at least seven years before taking another husband. The Indian government's policy is to deny the half-widows any relief before the expiration of seven years. At that point they can receive the standard relief offered to widows who have lost husbands to the insurgency; either a one-time grant of between $1,000 and $2,000 or a monthly pension of about $10. To date the government has provided relief to 400 half-widows. Activists estimate there are between 2,000 and 2,500 such women. Nearly all the half-widows are from lower-income families and were entirely dependent on their husbands, activists say. During the seven-year waiting period, the women's rights to their husbands' property are often threatened, says Pervez Imroz, a human-rights lawyer who spearheads the Human Rights group Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies, based in Srinagar. Property Rights
Denied
Imroz says the half-widows are often denied any share of their husbands' property by their in-laws. Some in-laws may recognize their property rights, but still restrict or infringe upon them in various ways. "With their husbands gone missing they have been left in the open sky," Imroz says. "The government is making just the tall claims and the situation is almost as similar as it was some years ago." Imroz's group has started a couple of training centers for half-widows and other women hurt by the region's militancy. The group is also documenting the history of Kashmir after the insurgency period and plans to provide a detailed account of the number killed and injured, the amount of damaged property and other measures of the human toll. The coalition has withstood at least two direct armed attacks on their activists in the past five years, during which two of their female workers were killed. Imroz was shot in the back during a 1995 attack and survived an assassination attempt in April 2005. His attackers are not identified but activists say it is dangerous to raise charges and questions of human rights violations such as those suffered by the half-widows. Many nongovernmental organizations avoid discussing the half-widows for fear of official reprisal. Park
Demonstrations
In a public plea for help in attaining information about the missing men, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons organizes a group of about two or three dozen half-widows--including Begum--to assemble at a central public park in Srinagar on the 25th of each month for a sit-in protest. Those who turn up have been missing their husbands for as long as 17 years. Many cry openly. As they hold photographs of their husbands in their hands and the names printed on their white headgears, the women have become an embarrassment for the authorities, who often break up the demonstrations. The women put a foundation stone in a graveyard as a group memorial in April 2005, but within hours the police destroyed it. "It is a hard situation for them," says Peerzada Arshad, a local journalist, who has covered the plight of the half-widows extensively for national newspapers. "The wives of missing husbands known as half-widows can't re-marry as the death of their husbands has not been confirmed, the children can't differentiate themselves between the two categories of orphans and non-orphans, and the grandparents long for a resolution, for one moment of a complete family." Fahmeeda Bano, 37, lives in a remote village of Kupwara south of Kashmir and has visited almost all the police stations and army camps in Kashmir. Still, sorrow haunts her. Her husband was picked up by the Indian army 14 years ago. "If my husband is alive I want to see him," she says. "I want the authorities to tell me where he is. If he has been killed let them hand over his body to me." |
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