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Enforced disappearances linked to organized crime
Criminal actors use ‘disappearances’ as a violent tool of control. The numbers of missing people in communities around the world are climbing ever higher. While international human rights law can hold states accountable for their direct involvement, the role of non-state actors, and particularly organized crime groups, is often overlooked, despite clear, documented evidence of executions, mass graves and disappearances. These acts happen primarily in Mexico and Central America, although they do occur all over the world, and increasingly so. For those who orchestrate or carry out enforced disappearances, impunity levels are high for various reasons – ineffective state responses and policies, inability to gather evidence and the complex, obscure ecosystems of illicit economies.
Resilience Fund
The Resilience Fund is the GI-TOC’s grant-making mechanism that finances, nurtures and supports local initiatives designed to respond to organized crime and build community resilience to it. The Fund runs a Fellowship programme and provides capacity building for civil society organizations.
Fellowship
In 2020, the Resilience Fund launched its first Fellowship programme to support individuals and organizations responding to organized crime in their communities. Focusing on the local impact of global organized crime, the inaugural theme was 'Disappearances related to organized crime'. The programme was designed to encourage collaboration among the Fellows, regardless of their locations, specific disciplines or fields. The Landscapes project, an outcome of this collaboration, documents disappearances all over the world and features contributions by the 2020 Fellows.
What is the Landscapes project and how does it connect to disappearances related to organized crime?
The main outcomes of this project are a website, a documentary and a campaign. The webpage provides a thought-provoking audio-visual experience of the 2020 Fellowship theme, curated by Mexican award-winning journalist Daniela Rea. The centrepiece of the project is Daniela's essay and documentary on disappearances, which are closely linked to the Fellows’ work in their communities, and include contributions by them.
Daniela’s essay, titled A Place Called Disappeared, takes the reader on a journey that deeply engages the emotions and the senses, as it draws us right into the traumatic world and lived experiences of people who have undertaken relentless searches for their disappeared relatives and loved ones. The story is situated in Mexico but applies to any place where disappeared people may be hidden. This way, A Place Called Disappeared raises awareness of the physical spaces that they occupy – a call to acknowledge that they may be lost in a temporal sense, but never really 'disappear'.
Accompanying families searching for their missing relatives across Mexico, Daniela Rea allows us to experience these horrific disappearances first-hand. Through words, pictures, music and literature, this 20-minute documentary will transport you alongside their journey and will premiere with the launch of the Landscapes project.
'Landscapes' aims to reach a wide audience, especially civil society actors from around the world. Through its multimedia format – videos, photos, text and audio clips – the content blends various perspectives on disappearances linked to organized crime. Central to this conversation is inclusivity, and all stakeholders are invited to engage with it.
Objectives of Landscapes:
- To provide an accessible platform that highlights the connections between disappearances and organized crime in communities around the world.
- To raise awareness of the different contexts of organized crime that engender disappearances.
- To bring to the fore local perspectives and place them in various contexts of illicit economies.
Key messages from the Fellows:
Let’s fight against all forms of enforced disappearances.
Benoit Kikwaya | Goma, DRC
Disappearances are not normal. Everyone deserves to be searched for.
Clavel Rangel | State of Bolivar, Venezuela
Don’t ignore the violence, and help out those hidden in plain sight.
Ioana Bauer | Bucharest, Romania
Death demands respect and mourning… until we find all those #StillMissing
Isabel Zuleta | Ituango, Colombia
Those holding office should be held accountable for disappearances .
Judie Kaberia | Meru, Kenya
Don’t leave anyone out. Bring the perpetrators of #disappearances into the healing conversation.
Mae, Paner | Manila, Philippines
Anyone could be disappeared. Solidarity for all the victims #StillMissing and their families.
Maria Isabel Cruz | Culiacan, Mexico
Notice the invisible and see the pain of the disappearances.
Rafael Lerma | Manila, Philippines
Demand international and national mechanisms for dealing with disappearances.
Sok Phay Sean | Phnom Penh, Cambodia
How can we help each other? – Partnership proposal
• The partner organization will share all campaign-related content on its social media platforms using the hashtag #GIDisappearances and #StillMissing. The GI-TOC will provide the content.
• The GI-TOC will incorporate the partner’s work (on condition it is relevant to the content) in the campaign, crediting the partner.
• The partner organization may suggest joint campaign activities with the GI-TOC, such as blogs, infographics, webinars and workshops.
• The partner may share cases and studies on disappearances with the GI-TOC. This includes evidence and data in local communities.
• The partner may refer civil society organizations for Resilience Fund programmes, such as its Fellowship and grants, and for advocacy activities.
Please contact us for more information or to discuss potential collaboration:
fellowship@globalinitiative.net
#Assassinationwitness and #GIDisappearances
In October 2021, following the launch of Landscapes and the #GIDisappearances campaign, the GI-TOC will launch its Global Assassination Monitor Database.
GI-TOC’s flagship initiative #AssassinationWitness is complemented and reinforced by #GIDisapperances in highlighting the enormous human cost of organized crime. They document each phenomenon to provide a better evidence base that informs national and multilateral bodies on the ways in which assassinations and disappearances are used as a means of criminal governance. They call on the international community to protect local communities and strengthen their resilience through better responses to these crimes.
About the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)
The Global Initiative is an independent civil-society organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with a globally dispersed secretariat and a high-level advisory board. Its network members include prominent law-enforcement, governance and development practitioners who are dedicated to seeking new and innovative strategies and responses to organized crime.