UNITED NATIONS: Two UN human rights experts have called upon the UN General Assembly to forcefully address the issue of enforced disappearances saying that time for promises has passed. “Now it is the time to act.”

Ariel Dulitzky, from the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappear­ances, and Emmanuel Decaux, from the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, called for new and better strategies to prevent, eradicate and respond to enforced disappearances.

“States must take full responsibility to solve the issue of enforced disappearances in all its aspects: prevention; search for the disappeared; punishment of the perpetrators; and reparation for the victims,” they said. “All this needs a strong and committed institutional response, while too often it is left to the initiative of the families of the disappeared or their associations.”

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014