يشارك
The Hague 10 December 2025: The Director-General of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), Kathryne Bomberger, issued the following statement today, marking International Human Rights Day.
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Governments are employing enforced disappearance as an instrument of policy, and where people disappear as a result of disasters or migration, governments are often reluctant to fulfil their legal obligation to account for the missing. It is important to highlight these facts on International Human Rights Day, and it is important, too, to highlight the fact that when the rights of missing persons and their families are infringed, the rights of all of us are infringed. Human Rights are indivisible.
In every corner of the world, the rights of missing persons and their relatives are being violated, because of neglect, because of administrative incompetence, and in some cases because of political calculation. In Gaza, thousands are missing, many buried beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings; huge numbers of persons are missing in Ukraine, including children abducted by the Russian Federation; Syria is just beginning to address the horrific legacy of 54 years of abuse and conflict, in many Western countries, the legal obligation of governments to investigate the disappearance of migrants and refugees is being ignored.
Disappearances among minority groups and among women in some societies are significantly higher than the average. Women are also more likely to disappear in certain disaster scenarios. Conversely, a majority of those who disappear in conflict and migration are men, which means that women survivors are often left to face institutional sexism and discrimination when they try to access their rights.
Expressing support for human rights is easy: turning that support into practical action is harder. But there are ways of doing this.
Decades of experience show that large-scale missing persons programs can succeed when the state assumes responsibility for the process, when legislation and appropriate institutions are in place, when forensic science and database technology is applied systematically, and when families of the missing are empowered to access their rights.
This process is embedded in a collective effort to uphold the human rights of victims and survivors. On this Human Rights Day, we pay tribute to the courage of families of the missing—from Kyiv to Baghdad, from Sarajevo to Damascus, from Hanoi to Bogotá—who continue to seek truth despite immense obstacles.
Upholding these rights strengthens the rule of law, reinforces trust in state institutions, and contributes to lasting peace. A world that commits to accounting for every missing person is a world that affirms the dignity of every human life. Protecting truth and justice for some means protecting truth and justice for all.
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. ICMP also supports the work of other organizations in their efforts, encourages public involvement in its activities, and contributes to the development of appropriate expressions of commemoration and tribute to the missing.
