Civil Society Initiatives

With the support of ICMP, Amals’ Healing and Advocacy Center launched a family association in Antakya, Türkiye, which involves more than 80 relatives of missing persons. In doing so, the organization offered the selected participants training sessions on legal empowerment, strategic planning, and on advocacy strategies.

With the support of ICMP, Nophotozone developed a training module on the legal framework of the issue of missing persons. The document also covers the emotional dimensions of disappearance and its impact on the families of missing persons.

The project aimed at encouraging families of the missing to become more actively involved in the search process, in particular by inviting distant relatives to update their current location and contact details. Project activities also encouraged younger generations to engage in understanding how important the issue of the missing is. It further cultivated a culture of remembrance and dealing with every crime, regardless of who committed it, and how that is important for all nations in the conflict in the 1990s, by focusing on raising awareness on the importance of participating in the process of resolving the issue of missing persons and nurturing the memory of victims, all for the sake of better coexistence and good neighborly relations.

The project carried out activities that helped inform family members of victims of current information on the possibilities of exercising the right to the truth in the Republic of Serbia and on the territory of Kosovo. Joint cooperation and engagement with active participation in the implementation of activities with all representatives of relevant institutions dealing with the process of exhumations, identification of missing persons in Kosovo, with the aim of overcoming obstacles that hinder the acceleration of the process.

Raising awareness of the wider social community and reminding that crimes of this kind should never happen again to anyone. Lobbying all relevant factors involved in the process of finding missing persons. Encouraging the state regarding the adoption of the Law on Civilian Victims of War. Engaging and informing the families related to missing persons process and addressing the issue of misidentification. Marking the 30 August with joint activities among Kosovar Serb and Kosovar Albanian families.

The project contributes to coordination of associations, namely associations of the families of the missing in advocating for the issues of missing persons, raising public awareness and providing the right information to the families, marking 27 April – Kosovo National Day of Disappearance and 30 August – International Day of the Disappeared. In particular, thematic meetings with families and relevant Institutions were organized in three regions, Pristina, Peja, Prizren.

The project enhances the cross-border cooperation regarding contribution to the process of enlightening the fate of missing persons. It also brings together youth from different ethnic backgrounds and enables discussions on human rights, trust building process, and peace and reconciliation. An art exhibition focused on missing persons themes was organized as part of the project.

Unmarked Graves brings in about 50 minutes the story of the disappearance of political opponents from the communist regime during 1945-1991, from the first uprisings against communism, political trials to border killings. The documentary includes 14 testimonies of the relatives of the missing and other witnesses, and through testimonies and archival documents sheds light on many burial sites that remain secret even today. The documentary also brings the digital map of these burial sites with a graphic work that shows interactively their location on the map of Albania.

Analysis of the legislation on finding missing bodies in Albania, memorial sites, and the Albanian experience in the last 30 years. The project also resulted with a documentary movie “Weight of Mud”

A bilingual publication that was distributed through stakeholders and groups of interest, assessing the legislative and institutional framework with regards to reconciliation, rehabilitation, right to truth, and access to justice, as part of the process of dealing with the past.

Advocacy: the CSO “Manos por la Paz” submitted a request to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) to be the legal representative victims of missing persons. This activity included the collection of information and a public event to make the cases visible.

Strengthening the participation of the CSOs platform RED VER (Network of Organizations Seeking Truth, Hope and Reunion) and the Departmental Working Groups in the processes of searching missing persons and the institutions created with the Peace Agreement (Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition)

Organizational Strengthening: The project focused on the organizational strengthening of the CSO platform “Red Ver”, which is an alliance of 15 organizations representing missing members of the security forces that was created in 2020 with the support of ICMP. The organizations advanced in the strategic planning of the platform for 2021-2022 and the creation of internal statutes.

Documentation of cases: The project documented cases of missing persons and submitted a report to the UBPD (Search Unit). The main source of this information was information provided by ex-combatants of the FARC-EP group who are at liberty or in prison. A geo-referencing activity was carried out of the places where bodies of missing persons may be found.

Commemoration and Awareness Raising: The project delivered educational workshops in schools in Bogotá, Medellín, Armenia, Popayán, Aguachica, Neiva, Barrancabermeja and Cúcuta with the objective of raising awareness about enforced disappearance and carried out commemoration activities for families of missing persons with young people. In preparation for the talks in schools, the organization developed pedagogical material to strengthen ASFADDES’ outreach strategy.

Case documentation and organizational strengthening: Project activities focused on data collection of missing persons cases in Meta and Nariño Departments and organizational strengthening of the FARC’s Commission for the Search for Disappeared Persons (Comisión de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas de las FARC).

Raising awareness among families of the missing, and government officials in the Muthana Governorate, about the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and relevant national legislation.

Raising awareness on the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance among families of the missing, government officials and university professors.

Conducting a survey among families of missing persons within the governorate of Halabja.

Participatory Rural Assessment (PRA) among families of the missing and martyrs in the province of Diyala. The findings of the PRA were presented to local authorities at a conference held.

Documentation of crimes committed by Da’esh in and around Sinjar mountain in 2014.

This handbook provides an overview of the tools that can be used when advocating for the issue of missing persons in Syria. The handbook also focuses on the importance of involving the families and relatives of the missing person in the advocacy process and provides an overview of other contexts that have experienced enforced disappearance.

View the handbook in English

View the handbook in Arabic

Hitma Organization for Cultural and Social Development, an Iraq-based Syrian CSO, worked alongside families of missing persons to compose and record a song titled, “You’ve been gone for so long. Come back already!”.  The song sheds light on the grief of relatives of missing persons.

Judy Organization for Relief and Development (JORD) organized an exhibition titled ‘Space of Hope’ in November 2021 in Erbil, Iraq. The exhibition displayed 60 paintings by families of missing persons.

As part of the project, the grantee organized a round table discussion to address the issue of missing persons. In addition to the representatives of state institutions involved in the process, the grantee invited representatives of cities and municipalities to ask for their support. The partners responded positively, as demonstrated by several examples that followed the meetings.

Every year, the grantee marks the anniversary of the suffering of 33 Croat civilians in 1993 in this small Grabovica village. ICMP assisted with identification of number of victims, but at least 16 persons still remain missing. The surviving residents’ anniversary reactions are a signal that they are not yet over the trauma of their experience, and still need to process or work through their grief.

The project brought together female leaders from the Western Balkans working on the issue of missing persons from civil society and government institutions. It represented a secure space  for an open discussion focused on problems that women family members of the missing come across in their life and work, as well as the problems that women members of the institutions come across in their work. The discussion made them self-aware of the commitment and power of women in the process, but also of the risks and challenges that women face in their efforts.

ICMP partially supported the large Srebrenica Heroines project that enabled women associations of missing persons to be officially and directly included and predominately highlighted during the 27^th Srebrenica commemoration. The Srebrenica Heroines project included women associations in all stages of project development and implementation giving them complete ownership over the narratives and topics discussed. The project also included the art installation “Mothers Scarf”. The scarves and shawls are not mere pieces of fabric. They are a symbol of resistance that represents the relentless battle for truth and justice carried out by the Mothers of Srebrenica for the last 27 years. The knots tying the scarves and shawls symbolise togetherness. They emphasise the solidarity between women in the face of egregious human rights violations. The thousands of scarves collected are a testament to the wide network of support knitted by the Mothers on their journey for justice.

As part of the project, the grantee marked the anniversary of suffering of civilians in Brcko by creating a powerful photo exhibition that was opened in the Brcko city center. Many people visited the exhibition and paid their respects to the victims by visiting several places of suffering in the city and its surroundings. The culture of remembrance is extremely important and shapes individual and collective identities and influences their further transformation.