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UN
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Disappearances/Pages/DisappearancesIndex.aspx
The
Working Group was established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980 to
assist families in determining the fate and whereabouts of disappeared
relatives. It endeavours to establish a channel of communication between the
families and the Governments concerned, to ensure that individual cases are
investigated, with the objective of clarifying the whereabouts of persons who,
having disappeared, are placed outside the protection of the law. In view of
its humanitarian mandate, clarification occurs when the fate or whereabouts of
the disappeared person are clearly established. The Working Group continues to
address cases of disappearances until they are resolved. It also provides
assistance in the implementation by States of the UN Declaration on the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
UN Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances to Visit Argentina – Important to Mothers &
Grandmothers of the “Disappeared”
GENEVA / BUENOS AIRES (26 February
2015) – The United Nations Working Group* on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances will meet in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 2 to 6 March 2015, to
mark the 35th anniversary of its creation as a response to the
disappearances committed by the dictatorship.
The Group will hold its 105th
session at the former site of one of the largest clandestine detention and
torture centers that operated in the country at the time, the Escuela
Superior de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), which currently houses the
Remembrance and Human Rights Centre of the National Archive of Memory.
“The creation of our body is
strictly related to enforced disappearances which took place in the country during
the dictatorship,” said the experts of the Working Group. “This triggered the
international community to establish the Working Group, the first UN
independent monitoring mechanism with the mandated to address a specific human
rights issue.”
The 35th anniversary of the
Working Group’s creation will be commemorated with a public event held at the
Salon Libertador of Palacio San Martin, premises of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, on Monday, 2 March, at 18:15. “We are very grateful to the Government
of Argentina for inviting the Working Group in this very symbolic opportunity,”
the experts noted.
During its session, the
five-strong group of experts will examine over 700 cases from 41 countries. It
will also meet relatives of those who have disappeared, civil society
representatives and different State authorities, to exchange information on
individual cases as well as to discuss thematic issues related to enforced
disappearances.
The Working Group will, in
addition, examine allegations received regarding obstacles encountered in the
implementation of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance……
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Argentina – Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo – Grandmothers (& Mothers) of the “Disappeared”
The drama
of children who disappeared in our country, the Argentine Republic, is one of
the consequences of the National Reorganization Process enforced by the
military dictatorship, which ruled the country between 1976 and 1983.
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-fold 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