Jessica Xantomila and Jared Laureles
The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 15, 2024, p. 7
The Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV), which only registers people who have already been recognized by a competent authority as direct or indirect victims of a crime, indicated that it only has 11,853 people in this condition due to disappearance by private individuals and forced disappearance, the latter when there is participation of state agents.
Victim recognition is granted legally, after investigation, by the public prosecutor’s offices, national and state human rights commissions, international organizations and the authorities that victimized, such as security institutions.
Recognized individuals may receive financial, psychological and social work support, as well as legal advice, medical links and comprehensive reparations for the damage caused, as determined by the authorities.
The record of the more than 11,853 victims of disappearance is different from the figures of the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons, which amounts to more than 115,000, because the latter is constantly fed by search files, data from federal and state prosecutors, search commissions and reports from the relatives themselves.
Yuriria Rodríguez, head of the CEAV, explained that of the total of 11,853 people recognized as victims of disappearance, 8,151 are from the federal sphere, and of these, 6,501 are indirect.
At the state level, he said that local commissions report 3,702 victims, of which 2,141 are indirect and of these 60 percent are women looking for a family member. Meanwhile, 1,561 are direct.
In a session of the National Search System, she highlighted the importance of including the gender perspective in the reparation processes and support for victims, since they have been identified different contexts of violence
against female relatives of missing persons.
An example, Yuriria Rodríguez mentioned, is the case of “an elderly woman, whose partner may have disappeared, and subsequently it is her children – adults – who are exercising violence against her, doing so for the economic resources that the government is giving them.”
