By KELIN DILLON 

In recent years, Mexico has emerged as a critical focal point for the international human rights community surrounding its missing persons crisis, prompting the United Nations (UN) Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) to activate Article 34 procedure on Friday, April 4, in determination that disappearances in Mexico are systematic or widespread.  

As of September 2024, Mexico topped the list of requests for urgent actions from CED with a massive 681 cases of enforced disappearances reported. An urgent action request from the CED pushes countries to immediately search for, locate, and protect missing individuals while also initiating investigations into their disappearances. 

Mexico was followed on the CED missing persons list by Iraq with 608 requests, Colombia with 233, and Cuba with 193.

In particular, the CED report showcased a disturbing trend in Mexico, where 349 urgent actions were compiled during the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto from 2012 to 2018 and 332 during the tenure of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from 2018 to 2024.

In its report, “The Binding Nature of Urgent Actions by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances in Mexico,” the CED characterized enforced disappearances, such as the controversial Ayotzinapa case, as one of Mexico’s most prolific current human rights issues. 

The report states, “It is a criminal practice that has been present for decades and a constant affront not only because of the crime itself, but also because of the almost absolute impunity, the lack of access to the truth, the lack of redress, the repetition of the behavior, the incomplete search, and the serious risks for those who demand justice.”

The CED’s report also revealed significant problems in Mexico’s search and investigation processes, stating that, “In the vast majority of cases involving disappearances in Mexico, the committee has received information revealing flaws in the search and investigation process, sometimes with very detailed information about the public officials involved in acts that have allegedly hindered the search and investigation.”

Michael Chamberlin, an activist and former member of the Advisory Council of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), highlighted that the urgent measures from the UN are often a last resort for families confronted with inaction, negligence, or indifference from the Mexican authorities. 

“The Committee on Enforced Disappearances knows that there is a widespread situation of disappearances and that it will not be able to address this reality with urgent actions or individual cases,  which is why last Friday, in an unprecedented move, it activated the Article 34 procedure, aimed at bringing the crisis before the UN Assembly, considering that the disappearances in Mexico are systematic or widespread” Chamberlin told daily Mexican newspaper El Universal.

 Chamberlin also highlighted that the CED’s recent actions reflect ongoing concerns about Mexico’s poor responses to the missing persons crisis. 

“The committee already noted a few days ago that disappearances represent a widespread and systematic situation. For more than 10 years, the CED has been receiving information about Mexico’s poor or ineffective response to prevent disappearances and reduce impunity,” he continued.

 “At the beginning of the last six-year term, a framework was built to address the issue of disappearances, and an institutional structure began to emerge,” added Andrea Horcasitas Martínez, head of the Human Rights Program at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. “However, in Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s final year in office, many of these efforts collapsed. The Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism was closed, completely canceled; the Human Identification Center was reduced to 70 percent of its capacity; the building was left empty.”

Horcasitas emphasized the need for the Mexican government to openly acknowledge the crisis surrounding disappearances, saying that “So far, there has been no real and honest recognition from the government that it is overwhelmed. Until that happens, it will be difficult for us to sit down at the table to develop a comprehensive set of strategies to address this problem from different perspectives.”