the impact of enforced disappearances on women and children in some asian countries-final

8/4/2019 The Impact of Enforced Disappearances on Women and Children in Some Asian Countries-FINAL

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The Impact of Enforced Disappearances

on Women and Children in Some Asian Countries:

A Challenge to the Greater Society

By: Mary Aileen D. Bacalso,

Secretary-General, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances

and Focal Person of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances

Delivered at Udini City Theater, Udini, Italy

Introduction

Organizers of this event, honored guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen, goodevening. First and foremost, on behalf of the Asian Federation Against

Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD). I would like to express our profound

gratitude to Centro Balducci for inviting us here in your beautiful country to

learn from each other’s situations and to forge solidarity between and among allof us.

Our organization, the AFAD, is a regional federation of human organizationsworking directly on the issue of enforced disappearances. Based in the

Philippines with 11 member-organizations from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, it was established on 4 June

1998 in Manila, Philippines as an organizational response to the regional phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Asia. According to the United

Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Asia is thecontinent which submitted the highest number of cases in recent years.

Moreover, Asia is the region bereft of regional human rights mechanisms for protection. For which reason, there is a need for a solid federation that

conducts regional and international campaign, public information, lobby andsolidarity work in order to put to a stop this abominable crime of enforced

disappearance.

Our Federation is also the focal point of the International Coalition Against

Enforced Disappearances (ICAED), a coalition of 40 organizationscampaigning for signatures and ratification of the International Convention for

the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, an internationaltreaty that manifests the recognition by the international community of the



magnitude of the crime, the need for truth and justice and putting the crime of enforced disappearance to a full stop.

Enforced Disappearances In Some Asian Countries

Many years ago, during the administration of the late former President CorazonAquino, at the heart of the Philippines’ second urban center, Cebu City, myhusband, whom at that time I was married for exactly two months, was forcibly

taken by seven armed men and was pushed inside a red car without a plate

number. I and the rest of our family searched for him in different militarycamps whose leaders all denied having him in their custody. After a week of

agonizing search, we learned from a person unknown to us and who escapedfrom the military custody after three months of severe torture that my husband

was with him in a secret detention center, later known to be owned by a military

general. Knowing this information, we immediately informed the Armed

Forces of the Philippines that we knew my husband’s whereabouts. Aware thatone of their detainees had escaped, the military was forced to release my

husband in a cemetery near his parents’ house. Physically and psychologicallytortured and deprived of food and water, my husband related how he was

moved from one camp to another; forced to confess that he was a member of the National Democratic Front and the Communist Party of the Philippines and

to identify the whereabouts of his alleged comrades. Fearful that the personwho escaped might testify, the Military Intelligence Group was forced to

release my husband in a cemetery near his parents’ house. This is a rare case

wherein a disappeared person resurfaces alive because in most of the more than2,000 reported cases that have occurred from the dictatorial Marcos regime up

to the present, the victims remain disappeared.

According to the international treaty on enforced disappearances, enforceddisappearance is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other

form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the

State, followed by the refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or byconcealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places

such a person outside the protection of the law.

The crime of enforced disappearance in our country and in many parts of the

Asian continent continues to victimize men and women alike. The 2010 Report

of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances states

that 94 countries of the world have outstanding cases of enforceddisappearances. Most of the victims were men and the surviving mothers,



wives, daughters of the disappeared bear the brunt of the consequences of enforced disappearance.

Enforced disappearances generally occur in the context of poverty and social

injustice. Politically, Asian States are not the best in terms of respect for and

promotion of human rights. In Southeast Asian countries, the ASEANIntergovernmental Commission on Human Rights is faced with skepticisms byhuman rights organizations because it lacks the necessary teeth to ensure not

only the promotion of human rights, but more importantly the protection of

people from human rights violations. Some sections, however, state that it isimportant to push this body for it to function according to its reason for

existence, but it requires persistence, perseverance and collective efforts.

In the whole of Asia, there is still no single country that has a domestic law that

criminalizes enforced disappearances. The anti-enforced disappearance draft

laws in Nepal and the Philippines have, after quite a long time, not yet beenenacted into law. Hence, cases of enforced disappearances, if filed in court, are

not considered as enforced disappearance but common crimes such as, for example, kidnapping, abduction, illegal arrest and detention, etc. If these bills

in Nepal and the Philippines are enacted into law, taking into consideration thevastness of the Asian continent, these will be the first and only anti-enforced

disappearance laws in Asia.

In as far as the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from

Enforced Disappearance is concerned, only three Asian States have ratified it,namely, Japan, Kazakhstan and Iraq. Those who have signed are Indonesia,

India, Laos and Azerbaijan. This utter lack of support to the Convention and

the absence of domestic laws criminalizing enforced disappearances are best

explained in the fact that violations of human rights, especially enforceddisappearances are rampant in the region. The United Nations Working Group

on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UN WGEID) has confirmed thisreality in its annual reports of the last five years, at least. As a matter of fact,

the Working Group has made several requests for official invitations fromAsian States to visit their countries, which, more often that not, did not receive

a positive response or did not even receive any response at all.



The Impact of Enforced Disappearances in Women and Children

Let me share with you stories of three women whom I personally met in my

almost two decades of working on the theme of enforced disappearances. To

protect the concerned persons’ privacy, I refrain from telling their real names.

A 16-year old beautiful lady in sari and veil was one of the 77 individual familymembers of the disappeared whom I met in the office of the Association of

Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in the disputed state of Kashmir in

2003. This lady whom I vividly remember having deep-seated eyes and fair complexion told the nightmare of her twin sister’s life when she was harassed

by the perpetrator of her father’s disappearance. The perpetrator accordinglyconfessed having disappeared her father. This military man offered to her sister

that he would surface her father alive if she would sleep with him. As an effect,

for many months, her sister literally lost her speech. She could no longer speak

because of fear. Efforts of her organization to help her return to her normal self eventually helped her regain her capacity to speak and be gradually reintegrated

to her family.

In Indonesia, I first met Ibu (or Madam) Brown when her organization, the

Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared ( IKOHI ) was launchedin 2003. She does not speak my language and I do not speak hers, but warm-

hearted as she is, her body language speaks a thousand words of solidarityamidst the pain of losing her son who was among the 13 student activists who

disappeared at the height of the anti-dictatorship campaign in Indonesia in thelate ‘90s. That first meeting was followed by several occasions in Indonesia

where she joined our lobbying activities with Indonesian authorities. Little didI know that in between these encounters with Ibu, she has occasionally

succumbed to psychiatric illnesses. Once, she was seen shouting alone in frontof a government building to demand for the release of her son. When our

former Chairperson, Munir was treacherously poisoned by arsenic by allegedmembers of the military intelligence in Indonesian in a Garuda flight to

Amsterdam, Mrs. Brown’s world collapsed. She was seen a number of timeswailing in a public event saying that she already lost her biological son. With

Munir’s assassination, she also lost a second son. She always filled me withwarm embraces every time we met and it always profoundly hurts me every

time I heard news that she is not well again and her poverty is exacerbating her situation.

In my own country, let me share with you a bit of the late Nanay (or Mother) F.During the supposedly democratic administration of the late President Corazon



Aquino, she lost her two sons – one was extrajudicially killed while the other involuntarily disappeared. While painful, these major losses in her life never

dampened her spirit. She joined the Families of Victims of InvoluntaryDisappearance (FIND) and by dint of her strength and leadership qualities, she

was elected chairperson of the FIND chapter in the National Capital Region. Iremember her to be a brave lady, who spoke both in internal meetings and

public events. When our organization was experiencing internal problems, shestood firm to stand by the organizational principles. As years went by, she

grew physically older and weaker. My last memory of her was when in aGeneral Membership meeting of FIND, she left earlier than the others because

she lived far from the office. Few minutes later, she came back and told me, “Icame back to vote for you as representative to the National Assembly.” It was

indeed, an honor for me to be trusted by this elderly lady. Only this year did Ihear that during her last years, she was wandering around searching for food,

seeking support from her family members who were not in their best position tohelp. She died starving, thirsty and very sick. She was beyond recognition

inside her coffin. Physically left of her were skin and bones, but they were

remains of a woman who struggled for life till the very end. Like many parentsof the disappeared, she would not have wanted to close her eyes without seeing

the dawn of truth and justice. As I paid my last respects to this woman of courage, I sadly reckoned that having seen no light at the end of the tunnel, she

did not die a peaceful death.

There are certainly more poignant stories in this true-to-life drama of enforced

disappearances and the continuing struggle to hope amidst despair; for memoryagainst forgetting and to wield the strength of the human spirit to search for thetruth, to find justice, to obtain redress and reparation and to continually fight for

non-repetition of this crime from the face of the earth.

In the general Asian context, wives and mothers of the disappeared are left to

take care of the remaining members of the family. Majority of them lack thenecessary education to get decent paying jobs. To make both ends meet, they

perform odd jobs, e.g. taking care of other people’s houses, washing other people’s clothes, selling food and whatever items there are to offer. In South

Asian countries, wives of the disappeared are called half-widows. Becausetheir husbands disappeared and there is no certainty that they are still alive,

these half-widows cannot get the necessary social benefits of ordinary widows.

In Sri Lanka, wives of the disappeared have to get a so-called temporary death

certificate to get some sort of financial assistance for their husband’sdisappearance. Their search of their disappeared husband is always faced with



harassment and intimidation as disappearances of the past remain unresolvedand continue to happen with each passing day.

In a number of other countries, women of their status have to wait for many

years before they could get the necessary social benefits that they deserve

When these women work, they are labelled as prostitutes. Remarrying is adifficult option because of the possible negative effects in the relationship

between the mother and her children by the disappeared husbands.

In the Philippines, for example, I remember a case when a daughter of thedisappeared was sexually abused by a stepfather, thus, making things more

difficult because the daughter did not get any moral support from the mother.

In Kashmir, some of these half-widows are disowned by their parents-in-lawwho can no longer take care of them and their children. Male parents of the

disappeared in Kashmir and in other South Asian countries are faced with the pressure of taking care of their daughters-in-law. I spoke to some of them who

shared the pain of returning their daughters-in-law to their biological parentswho likewise, do not have the means to take care of their own daughters and

grandchildren.

Children of the disappeared are no less affected. At a young age, they areforced to grip with the reality of having one of their parents subjected to

enforced disappearance. Some were still very small when the disappearance

occurred that they could not understand why they do not have fathers. Otherswere still in their mothers’ womb when their fathers disappeared. For their mothers to explain what happened is very difficult. There are also some

children who were older enough to understand what happened. It was worse for others who themselves witnessed when their fathers were forcibly taken away

from their homes. One son of a disappeared who witnessed the disappearance

of his own father continues to blame himself for his helplessness. A gun fellfrom the hand of a perpetrator and to his biggest regret, this son of a

disappeared blames himself for not taking the gun, killed the perpetrator and prevented his father’s disappearance. As families of the disappeared are

stigmatized by the disappearance of their fathers, the children are no lessaffected. Their fathers are called rebels, enemies of the state, traitors and many

other names by both grown-ups and other children alike, thus affecting the self-

esteem of these children.



Moreover, the disappearance of breadwinners hinder children of thedisappeared from getting adequate education necessarily to prepare them for

later life. They have to work at an early age to cope up with the economicneeds of the family.

Enforced disappearance causes disintegration of the families concerned.

Children find it difficult to relate with their mothers and vice versa. In thePhilippine setting, for instance, the eldest child is expected to take care of his or

her younger siblings, causing frustrations because of their limitations or evenfailure to fulfill their dreams. They feel angry if mothers enter into

relationships with other men. Problems worsen when these men cause more problems especially so if they are unemployed and violent. Teen-age

marriages, drug addiction, health problems are among some of the negativeconsequences of the spiral of emotional, mental and psychological violence that

enforced disappearance brings.

All these negative consequences of enforced disappearance, if not processed,

will certainly cause a vicious cycle of social problems. With these and the lack of resolution of cases and the absence of punishment to the perpetrators will

bring about a continuing cycle of impunity where violations are doomed to berepeated.

Sources of Hope…

While not yet scientifically proven through an in-depth research, it is apparent

that families of the disappeared look up to a higher being. These women familymembers resort to prayers as a refuge in the midst of all these pains. These are

their valuable means of coping with the horrors of the enforced disappearanceof their loved ones.

Religions in countries where the AFAD member-organizations are located arevaried. In the Philippines, the families of the disappeared are predominantly

Christian and Catholic. There are also Muslim family members of the

disappeared in the south of the country. In Indonesia, families of thedisappeared are predominantly Muslims. In Sri Lanka and Thailand, a number of them are Buddhists, while there are also Muslims especially in the deep

south of Thailand. In South Asian countries, they are a combination of Buddhists and Muslims. Yet, regardless of the kind of religion families of the

disappeared profess to believe, the idea of a higher being is a consolation. The belief that divine justice prevails when human justice miserably fails is a source



of hope that in the face of all the brokenness brought about by enforceddisappearance, one day there shall be vindication to all their miseries.

There are other forms of therapy which aid in eventual psychosocial

rehabilitation of the victims. From the experience of the Association of theChildren of the Disappeared, theatre is one form of therapy. Not only is this a

form of catharsis, which is important especially at the first stages after thedisappearance. It is also fulfilling knowing that it is useful as a medium to

educate the general public about the phenomenon of enforced disappearanceand eliciting moral, material and political support from them. It is a strong

medium to call the concerned government to listen to the cry of the families of the victims through concrete actions and through putting to a stop the crime.

Other forms of art, e.g. drawing, poetry, short story writing and the likes are

beautiful means to express feelings and to convey messages to the general public and to governments. Doing so would give some kind of liberation and

empowerment on the part of the families of the victims to tell their stories and

to bring their message across the concerned government.

These are only some of the forms being used and are an integral part of a process of psycho-social rehabilitation; holistic healing and empowerment.

These, however, need to have the combined efforts of the families of thevictims, survivors of enforced disappearances and professionals in the

respective fields of arts earlier mentioned.

Knowledge of the truth is equally liberating. Hence, truth telling activities arealso important ways for victims to speak up even in front of alleged

perpetrators. These may touch human hearts even among those who themselvescommitted the act of enforced disappearance, of torturing victims and even

killing them.

If witnesses are available to identify possible graves of disappeared people who

happened to have been already killed, exhumations, identification of remains

and decent burial or cremation are very important means of closure. In somecases, identification of remains of disappeared people could serve as pieces of evidence in courts and could pave the way to justice and non-repetition.

Success stories in many parts of the world are in themselves empowering. The

identification of disappeared children in Central America and their reunificationwith their biological parents is indeed humanly gratifying. The punishment of



military generals in Argentina and the identification of disappearedgrandchildren of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo are concrete examples

of bitter-sweet fruits of the struggle for truth, justice, redress, reparation and thereconstruction of the historical memory of the disappeared.

Solidarity among families of the disappeared from the community to the

international levels is a concrete source of consolation and hope that they areone in the same pain, in the same hope, in the same struggle and in the same

victory.

The Uphill Struggle of Turning Victims into Human Rights Defenders

The empowerment of families of the disappeared is crucial, however, resources

are scarce to comprehensively respond to their needs. These include thefollowing:

• physical needs through socio-economic support;

• the spiritual needs of the heart and the soul through psychosocial

rehabilitation program that will address the psychological trauma broughtabout by their disappearance;

• the need for conscientization by raising levels of awareness so that the

families of the victims understand the very context of their loved ones’

disappearance.

Such comprehensive needs, if answered, will facilitate a process of transformation of victims of human rights violations to human rights defenders.

This is difficult, though because of the dearth of resources which aresupposedly necessary to respond to the needs stated. However, if ideally

responded to simultaneous with the victims’ families’ participation in advocacyactivities, it will enhance the quantitative and qualitative improvement of their

level of participation in the struggle against enforced disappearances; in their struggle for a better world. Then and only then can family members of the

disappeared, especially women and children become an integral part of acollective movement of protagonists of a human future.

Families of the disappeared in South American countries, for example, havesuccessfully received some kind of pension from their governments who

explicitly admitted their responsibility on cases of enforced disappearancesduring those dark years of dictatorship. This has been achieved due to years of



indefatigable campaign for truth and justice. The reparation these familymembers received from their governments had allowed them to participate

better in the struggle against enforced disappearances and against impunity.This level of victory, so far, has not yet been obtained in Asia.

The process of empowerment of families of the disappeared is very important

because, with the support of the greater society, they are in the best position torally to the fore the legitimacy of their cause. The empowerment process is

interrelated with the advocacy against enforced disappearances itself. Onecannot exist without the other. Hence, complementing these efforts of

empowerment as well as the actual advocacy itself is the most effective meansof eventually realizing the much cherished dream of a world without

disappeared people.

Conclusion

Distinguished organizers, friends, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of

enforced disappearance is our reality in Asia and in many parts of the world. Itmay not be as felt here in Italy as it is in our countries of the Asian region. But

the issue of enforced disappearances does not only belong to the victims andtheir families but to the greater society as well. It belongs to everyone who

dwells in our planet earth. Thus, our involvement in the cause of thedisappeared and their families makes a lot of difference and goes a long way in

creating a new reality. The day we stop burning with love, people will continueto vanish into thin air and eventually die of the cold.

In December 2006, the United Nations adopted the International Convention for

the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which at present,has been signed by 90 States, including Italy and ratified by 30. As I stand

before you, may I take this opportunity to call on the Italian government and therest of the members of the United Nations which have not yet ratified the treaty,to ratify this Convention without further delay.

Finally, friends, ladies and gentlemen, let me say that enforced disappearancedoes not have a place in a supposedly civilized world of ours. It is the one of the cruellest forms of human rights violation that should be eradicated from the

face of the earth. The deprivation of liberty, the denial of custody, thefamilies’ pain of uncertainty and fear of the possibility of death - these make

enforced disappearance a crime against humanity never to be repeated inhistory. Never again!

the impact of enforced disappearances on women and children in some asian countries-final

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