OPINION: Action now! Kenya must end enforced disappearances

For families of people who have been forcibly disappeared in Kenya, the pain does not end with the disappearance.

It continues every morning when a mother wonders whether her son or daughter is alive, every time a wife or husband waits for a knock on the door, and every time a child asks when their parent is coming home.

The absence becomes a permanent wound, compounded by uncertainty, silence and, too often, institutional indifference.

Kenya cannot continue treating enforced disappearances as isolated incidents. The numbers tell a story that demands urgent attention.

An enforced disappearance occurs when a person is arrested, detained, abducted or otherwise deprived of their liberty by state agents, or by persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or the concealment of the person’s fate or whereabouts.

Such acts place victims outside the protection of the law and deny families their fundamental right to know the truth.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Kenya is a signatory to the Convention but, more than two decades later, has yet to ratify it.

This continued delay is difficult to reconcile with the persistence of enforced disappearances in the country and the devastating impact they have on victims, families and communities.

Twenty years after its adoption, Kenya should seriously reconsider its position. Ratification would demonstrate a stronger commitment to preventing enforced disappearances, strengthening accountability and ensuring effective remedies for victims and their families.

Guided by this year’s theme, “Victims First. Action Now,” the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances has placed victims and their families at the centre of efforts to address this grave violation. The message is clear, enforced disappearances are preventable, and states and other stakeholders have both the responsibility and the tools to act.

According to the Missing Voices Coalition, 196 people have been forcibly disappeared in Kenya between 2019 and 2026 to date. These figures are not merely statistics. Behind every number is a person whose life has been disrupted and a family left searching for answers.

The concern is particularly urgent as Kenya approaches another electoral cycle. There are worrying signs that enforced disappearances and other forms of state-linked violence could continue to be used to silence dissent and intimidate citizens.

If left unchecked, this risks entrenching a culture of fear in which people can be taken away while their families are left without information, justice or closure.

But ratification alone will not solve the problem. Kenya must also ensure that its domestic legal and institutional framework is capable of delivering on the commitments that ratification would bring.

Parliament has an important role to play. It must provide the legal clarity that is currently needed by ensuring that enforced disappearance is expressly recognised and criminalised, and by establishing effective mechanisms through which victims and families can pursue truth, justice and reparations.

The Executive and law enforcement agencies must act. Every credible allegation of enforced disappearance must be investigated promptly, independently and effectively.

Families should not be left to conduct investigations on their own while institutions with the mandate, authority and resources to establish the truth remain silent.

Accountability must also extend beyond the individual who physically carries out a disappearance.

Where commanders, officials or other authorities knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that such violations were taking place and failed to prevent, investigate or punish them, there must be meaningful avenues for holding them accountable.

Responsibility cannot end with the person who carried out the act; those who enable, authorise, tolerate or fail to act against such violations must also face scrutiny.

Civil society and human rights defenders have a critical role to play. Documentation matters because what is not recorded can easily be denied, forgotten or erased from public memory.

Families need organisations that can help them navigate legal systems, preserve evidence, document violations and ensure that cases remain visible.

The media, too, must continue telling these stories responsibly and consistently. Enforced disappearances should not become headlines only when a person first goes missing.

Sustained reporting can keep pressure on institutions, inform the public and ensure that victims do not disappear a second time, this time from public attention.

Families should not have to spend years moving from police stations to courts, mortuaries and government offices simply to establish what happened to someone they love.

They should not have to carry the burden of investigation while institutions with the power and resources to investigate remain silent.

The right to know the truth belongs not only to the missing person’s family but to society as a whole.

Every unresolved disappearance weakens public trust in institutions and reinforces the dangerous belief that some people can be removed from the protection of the law without consequence.

This year offers Kenya a significant opportunity to confront this issue.

Twenty years after the international community adopted the Convention against enforced disappearances, Kenya should not wait for another generation of families to endure the same uncertainty.

Ratification must be accompanied by strong domestic laws, effective investigations, institutional accountability and meaningful remedies for victims and their families.

The time has come to put victims first, turn commitments into action and ensure that no person can simply disappear from the protection of the law.

The Writer Shukri Wachu is a Journalist, Human Rights Defender and National Coordinator of the Missing Voices Coalition.