Paying homage to women victims of enforced disappearances

By Mary Aileen D. Bacalso, President of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED)

An important inroad into women's struggle against inequality and discrimination, the CEDAW came into force on Sept. 3, 1981. Its full implementation, however, remains a challenge.

Women family members of the disappeared are among the millions of women worldwide who suffer, in many ways, from various forms of human rights violations.

Women are victimized by enforced disappearance in two ways. 

First, they are themselves made to disappear.  Many testimonies of these victims say that they were sexually abused in secret detention and the pregnant women were made to deliver their babies who were taken away from them. Born in captivity, their children have likewise enforced disappeared when they were stolen and sold for adoption. 

Second, women are victimized by this heinous crime when their loved ones are forcibly disappeared. Grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and sisters of the disappeared are part of the category of victims provided for in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.