Grande-Marlaska has highlighted the "commitment" that exists from his apartment with relatives and relatives of disappeared persons, since disappearances are "a problem of the first social order."
The head of Interior has been accompanied in the presentation by the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez, the director of the Office of Coordination and Studies, José Antonio Rodríguez, the director of the National Center for the Disappeared, Jaime Cereceda, and the inspector of National Police and Head of the Center, Laura López.
The Interior Minister recalled the package of measures that were implemented last year in order to improve the effectiveness of investigations into disappearances and that included, among other developments, a common protocol for the Security Forces and Bodies or the new classification so that each case and its circumstances can be treated uniquely. The report that has been presented also includes statistical innovations with new parameters, such as the duration and recurrence of disappearances.
"This Protocol of Action that we launched last year brings us closer to the international standards of voluntary, involuntary and forced disappearances," added Grande-Marlaska.
Missing Report
Regarding the report, in 2019 there were a total of 26,356 registered complaints, representing a decrease of 11.55% over the year 2018.
As for the complaints that remain active, that is, those in which the person has not yet been located, they are 2,451. Regarding this figure, it must be taken into account that the data were extracted as of December 31, so there was no room for resolution.
In fact, a significant decrease in the number of active complaints can be seen in relation to the data published last year (there were more than 7,000). This phenomenon is due to several factors, including a more agile management of disappearances after the publication of the Action Protocol.
Regarding absolute terms, that is, total complaints filed since the creation of the System of Missing Persons and Unidentified Human Remains (PDyRH) in 2010, as of December 31, 2019 in the database of the System registered a total of 202,529 complaints of disappearances of people.
These complaints correspond mainly to the period 2010-2019, the operating time of this system. Also included are those complaints prior to the year 2010 that were pending at the time the system was launched. Of all these complaints, as of December 31, 2019, 5,529 complaints are active, representing 2.73% of the total registered complaints. However, 188,469 of these complaints have been dismissed for different reasons, mainly because of the person's reimbursement.
From the data recorded so far on the typologies in PDyRH, it has been proven that the majority of complaints are voluntary (around 92%). As for involuntary disappearances, these represent 7% of the total known cases, while forced ones are only around 1%.
Recurrences
For the first time, this report includes the concept of recidivism; that is, when a person disappears, especially when they do so voluntarily, it sometimes happens that their absence is repeated and, therefore, the complaint about it.
In this sense, we must distinguish between repeat and non-repeat offenders. Non-repeat offenders represent 97,645 complaints since 2010, which correspond to the same number of people. Although, as for repeat offenders, there would be 23,468 people, who disappear twice or repeatedly, thus raising the number to 202,529 complaints of disappearance, referring to 121,113 individuals.
Regarding the classification by sex, 58% of the complaints correspond to men and 41%; However, regarding active complaints, the proportion of men is more than three times that of women.
Duration of disappearances
Another of the new parameters included in this report is the duration of the disappearances. The duration of the disappearances is the time elapsed between a person disappears and the moment when the police signaling on it is removed.
In this way, it can be determined that most of the disappearances (74%) are ceased or resolved in the first two weeks after the complaint, a smaller percentage are clarified between 15 to 30 days.
