An organisation in a statement said that the enforced disappearance remained unabated in Bangladesh with nearly 700 reported victims from 2009 to 2023.
The Women鈥檚 Congress on Enforced Disappearance, a platform of the victims of forced disappeared, came up with the statement on Wednesday.聽聽
Many of the victims have not yet been located and those who have resurfaced alive reported experiencing torture and inhumane treatment, the statement said.
鈥楾he incumbent government systematically allows law enforcement agencies and security forces to use enforced disappearances as a tool to suppress political opposition and silence dissenting voices, creating a climate of fear in the country to sustain authoritarian rule,鈥� said the statement.
It also said that the enforced disappearances increased prior to national elections, targeting opposition party leaders and activists, a systematic pattern seen in the recent years.
Various state and intelligence agency personnel are implicated in these cases of enforced disappearances; the government of Bangladesh blatantly denies their occurrence and has not signed or ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.聽
The organisation also said that economic crisis faced by the families of the disappeared was exacerbated by the fact that many of the disappeared were the breadwinners for their families, leaving women to bear the sole responsibility of raising their children and earning a livelihood, said the statement.
The family members of the disappeared are facing extreme psychological, socio-cultural, mental, financial, and security-related pressure and repression from the state, the statement stressed.
Due to the impunity granted to state forces and the dysfunctional judicial system, families of the disappeared are deprived of justice, with no visible effort by the authorities to investigate allegations or provide information to the families, said the statement.
The women whose husbands have disappeared and their whereabouts remain unknown, consider themselves 鈥榟alf-widows鈥� and face severe mental trauma, enduring indefinite waiting for information regarding the disappeared, it added.
Women who are left to seek truth and justice for their disappeared loved ones are subjected to surveillance, intimidation, harassment, and threats by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, it mentioned.
The organisation urged the government to immediately return disappeared individuals to their families and bring the perpetrators to justice accordingly.
