More Than 82,000 People Have Disappeared in Brazil Last Year

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Administrator Jonis Gonçalves Martins, 45, a resident of Vila Maria in the northern part of São Paulo, recalls the last day he saw his mother, housewife Sueli de Oliveira, who disappeared. She was 67 years old and has been missing for more than three years, since January 30th, 2016.

Lucineide da Silva Damasceno, 53, also from São Paulo, still waits for her son who has been missing for more than 10 years. According to her, the disappearance of her son on November 3rd, 2008, is still a mystery. “No explanation! He left to go to visit a friend and never returned.”

The reports of Jonis and Lucineide expose the discouragement of thousands of families who reported the disappearance of relatives. In 2018, there were 82,094 cases, according to the Brazilian Yearbook of Public Security. That’s 39.4 disappearances per 100,000 people. The figures are based on microdata from the state security secretariats of the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

In the states with the highest number of missing persons in 2018 were: São Paulo (24,366), Rio Grande do Sul (9,090), Minas Gerais (8,594), Paraná (6,952), and Rio de Janeiro (4,619). In relative terms, the disappearance rate per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rates are in the Federal District (84.5), Rio Grande do Sul (80.2), Rondônia (75.2), Roraima (70.4) and Paraná (61.3).

From 2007 to 2018, the numbers total 858,871 cases. In this period of more than a decade, the average is 71,500 cases of missing persons per year.

Although high, the numbers may be underestimated. “We know, because of contact with the families, that there are people who do not go to the police station to register a disappearance for various reasons,” says Marianne Pecassou, protection coordinator of the ICRC’s regional delegation.

In addition to the problem of underreporting, Marianne Pecassou points out that the lack of information leads to a lack of knowledge about the reasons and circumstances for the disappearances, such as mental health problems, migration, and violence used for different purposes – assault, homicide, sexual abuse and exploitation, human trafficking and even organ trafficking.

Ivanise da Silva of the ‘Mães da Sé’ (“Mothers from Sé”) movement complains that the national register of missing persons for adults and children that was launched in the last decade has not been updated and cannot be used to help locate people and produce reliable statistics. She participated in the elaboration of the two platforms and remembers that the functioning of these services is overseen by law. “The national vehicle register works and even finds a stolen car in Paraguay. Why don’t we have a registry for missing persons?”

For Marianne Pecassou, the availability and exchange of information are fundamental to solve cases of disappearances. Besides, it is necessary to have preventive actions and public opinion clarification. “Alerting helps to prevent”, she stresses. “We do not want pity, but we need solidarity”.

In the opinion of the Protection Coordinator of the Regional Office of the ICRC, the State and society must also take better care of families with missing persons. “They face psychological or psychosocial problems and problems of relationship with their environment. They are isolated families. If they receive some support at the beginning of the search, over time, if the family member does not appear, the people are distancing themselves and these families are becoming more and more isolated.”

“Time goes by and people question themselves and form judgments. Time passes even more and people start to get tired of this story and, after more time, they don’t want to know about the problem anymore. If you don’t adapt, you will be completely excluded from society and even from the family”, describes Jonis Martins.

“There is no attention from society in relation to our disappeared”, complains Lucineide Damasceno. For her, the Public Power should also do more: “the State can train professionals to work for the police, implement the National General Registry (RG), create a database between police stations, hospitals, legal medical institutes, hostels, including images of the people who are there daily,” she suggests.

Source: Agência Brasil