IslamiCity Shares Commentary: Enforced Disappearance Is a Feminist Cause

IslamiCity, the long-running Muslim digital platform, has published a commentary on its Life & Society section that argues enforced disappearance should be understood as a women’s rights issue, not only a crime against the men who are taken. The piece, “A Feminist Interpretation of Enforced Disappearance,” is written by Dr. Md Mahmudul Hasan, a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at International Islamic University Malaysia.

A crime that reaches beyond its direct victims

Hasan notes that enforced disappearance is centuries old but returned as a systematic state practice in the second half of the 20th century. He points to Bangladesh under the Sheikh Hasina government (2009-2024), where he says disappearances and extrajudicial killings were used to silence opposition.

Most of those taken are men, he writes, but women are not spared. He cites Argentina’s “Dirty War” (1976-1983), when pregnant women were disappeared and their newborns were given to families linked to the military regime. Women who are not abducted themselves often carry the heaviest burden, he argues. They search for relatives, lose a breadwinner, and face stigma and sexual violence while seeking answers from officials. Hasan draws on academic research on Peru and Kashmir, and recounts a reported case in Bangladesh involving a police officer and the wife of a detained man. IslamiCity’s readers can find the full account on the original article page.

“Half-widows” and the limbo of not knowing

The article gives particular attention to Kashmir’s “half-widows,” women whose husbands disappeared and whose marital status is therefore unresolved. Citing a 2024 study, Hasan reports that between 8,000 and 10,000 men were disappeared in Kashmir from 1989 to 2006. He also cites scholar Ather Zia’s finding that, although local Islamic jurists have said such wives may remarry after four years, about 91 percent choose to keep waiting. According to the article, none of the disappeared Kashmiri men has returned.

Mothers as movement leaders

Hasan traces a global pattern of women organizing in response. In Bangladesh, Mayer Daak (“Mothers’ Call”) was formed after the 2013 disappearance of BNP leader Sajedul Islam Shumon, founded by his sisters Sanjida Islam Tulee and Afroza Islam Ankhi. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in Kashmir was founded in 1994 by Parveena Ahangar, whose teenage son was taken in 1990. Hasan also lists CoMadres in El Salvador and Argentina’s Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, led by Hebe de Bonafini, who died in November 2022.

His conclusion is a call to action. Women’s rights groups in Bangladesh and abroad, he says, have yet to mount a unified campaign against enforced disappearance. If they did, regardless of who the perpetrators are, he argues the fight against the practice would be stronger.

Why it matters

By carrying this analysis, IslamiCity brings a human rights topic that often receives little coverage to a wide Muslim and global readership. The article sits within the platform’s Human Rights and Peace & Justice coverage and links to related reporting on Bangladesh’s July 2024 uprising.

Read the full article here.