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Human rights organizations in Brazil have created an online platform Brasil Nunca Mais Digital to preserve evidence and other documents related to more than 7,000 political prisoners tried before Brazil’s Military Supreme Court, during that country’s military dictatorship.

About the Project There are few crimes with such devastating and far-reaching impacts as enforced disappearance. Innocents taken from their homes vanish to secret locations known only to the perpetrators. Imprisoned, tortured, and often killed for dubious reasons, their disappearance leaves a void in which families struggle to understand what has happened to their loved ones. In this limbo of not knowing, they exist condemned to days, months, and sometimes years of searching for clues and bits of information, left vulnerable to discrimination and abuse by the same people who disappeared their kin. Sometimes their search leads them to a grave with remains that can be identified by a personal detail, a key their child had when her life was taken or a DNA sample from a single bone. Some end up living in this limbo for the rest of their lives, unable to reconcile that their loved one is dead, desperately clinging to hope, against all odds, with the absence of the disappeared palpable every day of their life. To help depict the impact of disappearances on families, we solicited the help of some of the world’s leading photographers, whose photos bring to life the universality of the plight of the families of the disappeared. For this unique project, Rodrigo Abd, Mari Bastashevski, Marcelo Brodsky, Ziyah Gafic, Dalia Khamissy, Susan Meiselas, and Gervasio Sánchez have shared some of their most poignant images and thoughts about their experience of working with the families of the disappeared and its impact on them. The motives are as diverse as the dimensions of the pain suffered by the families. From empty rooms echoing with the voices of the taken, to personal artifacts exhumed with remains hidden by killers, to the endless conflict between despair and hope on the faces of parents who cling to the photo of their disappeared children. However, all of the images, without exception, capture the void that dominates the lives of those left behind. It is images like these that make the horror of this crime visible and real. On this International Day of the Disappeared, we invite you to take a moment to consider the awful impact of this heinous crime that has scarred numerous societies around the world and stand in solidarity with its victims in their struggle for truth and justice.

Ten years ago, on August 28, 2003, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru presented its final report, clarifying the grave human rights violations committed between 1980 and 2000 during the internal armed conflict and the regime headed by Alberto Fujimori. This month, ICTJ joins Peru to examine the legacy and impact of the TRC.

ICTJ is pleased to announce that Pamela Hogan and Jamie Metzl have joined ICTJ’s Board of Directors. “We are delighted to welcome Jamie and Pamela to the ICTJ Board,” said President David Tolbert.

In the brutality of armed conflict or tyranny of a repressive regime, many who go missing are never found again: whether “disappeared” by agents of the state or abducted by an armed faction, the whereabouts of thousands are still unknown to this day. On this International Day of the Disappeared, ICTJ recognizes that enforced disappearances constitute crimes against humanity, and they affect women in ways unique from the impact on men.

Based on the findings of over 450 interviews, this briefing paper looks at the socioeconomic impact of enforced disappearances on the wives of the disappeared in Nepal. More than 1,000 people remain unaccounted for after Nepal’s 10-year conflict ended in 2006. The majority were young men with wives and children. The paper highlights the precarious economic situation that results from the loss of a husband who is usually the family’s sole breadwinner.

In a briefing paper released on the eve of the International Day of the Disappeared, ICTJ documents the experience of the wives of the disappeared in Nepal and calls for measures to address the poverty, social stigma, and legal limbo they continue to face in their day-to-day lives.

Enforced disappearances are among the cruelest of crimes. To the kidnapping, torture, and in many cases, murder of the victim, perpetrators intentionally create fear and uncertainty about the fate of the missing person. Although men are predominantly targeted, the impact on women is severe and lasting.

Despite the overwhelming number of Lebanon's civilians killed, injured, displaced or otherwise harmed by decades of violence, there remains a near-total lack of official acknowledgment, reparation, truth about serious crimes or accountability for the perpetrators. ICTJ is pleased to release the first in a series of publications that aim to bring the crimes of the past in Lebanon to light.

This report compiles information on hundreds of incidents of serious human rights violations that occurred in Lebanon from 1975 to 2008, including mass killings, enforced disappearances, assassinations, forced displacement, and the shelling of civilian areas. It reveals patterns of violence and provides an analysis of incidents within the framework of international human rights and humanitarian law. While not an exhaustive mapping, the report is intended to serve as a key resource on which future research and investigative work can be built. Its aim is to contribute to the debate on how to break the cycle of political violence and serious violations of human rights in Lebanon and bring about accountability, the rule of law, and sustainable peace.