Editing Enforced disappearance (section)

{{Short description|Unlawful secret disappearance}}
{{Redirect-multi|2|Disappeared|Desaparecidos}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}

[[File:Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos de Chile (de Kena Lorenzini).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Women of the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared demonstrate in front of [[La Moneda Palace]] during the [[Pinochet military regime]].]]
An '''enforced disappearance''' (or '''forced disappearance''') is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a [[State (polity)|state]] followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.<ref name="HenckaertsDoswald-Beck2005">{{cite book|author1=Jean-Marie Henckaerts|author2=Louise Doswald-Beck|author3-link=International Committee of the Red Cross|author3=International Committee of the Red Cross |title=Customary International Humanitarian Law: Rules|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ny1Dv3VNPYC&pg=PA342|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-80899-6|page=342}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About enforced disappearance |url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-disappearances/about-enforced-disappearance#:~:text=An%20enforced%20disappearance%20is%20considered,deprivation%20of%20liberty%20or%20by |publisher=Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances |access-date=22 December 2023}}</ref> Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is [[kidnapping|abducted]], may be illegally [[prison|detained]], and is often [[torture]]d during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. The party committing the murder has [[plausible deniability]] as there is no evidence of the victim's death. 

Enforced disappearance was first recognized as a human rights issue in the 1970s as a result of [[Detenidos Desaparecidos|its use by military dictatorships in Latin America]] during the [[Dirty War]]. However, it has occurred all over the world.<ref>{{cite web |title=Enforced Disappearances |url=https://humanrightshistory.umich.edu/problems/disappearances/#:~:text=Enforced%20disappearances%20was%20first%20recognized,custody%20by%20Chilean%20security%20forces. |website=Human Rights Advocacy and the History of Human Rights Standards |access-date=22 December 2023}}</ref>

According to the [[Rome Statute]] of the [[International Criminal Court]], which came into force on July 1, 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population,  enforced disappearance qualifies as a [[crime against humanity]], not subject to a [[statute of limitations]], in [[international criminal law]]. On December 20, 2006, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] adopted the [[International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance]].