Enforced disappearance is the forceful taking of the liberty of an individual, and then the concealment of the fate or even the whereabouts of that disappeared person. In other words, as bad as it is to be arrested, or even to be convicted of a crime, and thus incarcerated – we find that in at least those cases the person so arrested or so incarcerated, has a known facility where they are located at, and of which, that facility will almost always have some semblance of rules for those of the family, legal representatives, or perhaps the media to make contact with the accused or convicted. On the other hand, those that are forcefully disappeared, through whatever means, sanctioned or not by governmental authorities, are effectively hidden away from those of the family, legal representatives, or the media. That is to say, the person that has been disappeared has a fate, that is unsearchable, unknowable, and typically rather dire.
To say that the enforced disappearance of anybody is one of most heinous wrongdoings that can be committed against any other human being, would be no understatement – for first of all, there is, quite obviously, no rule of law that is being followed or adhered to in regards to such a forced disappearance. Additionally, enforced disappearance, is used against particular targets, to essentially not only silence that person so disappeared, but also to provoke terror and fear within communities and family units, that thus make those people far less likely or willing to speak out, or to speak up, for their obvious concern that the situation could get even worse for them, personally.
Any governance that is part and parcel of enforced disappearances, or appears to basically acquiesce to such, is a government that has betrayed its people and has no real legitimacy. The reason why there are those governments, or outlaw states, that enact enforced disappearance against certain peoples, has an awful lot to do with those agencies, not wishing to countenance any other viewpoints or behaviors that are not in keeping with what that regime so desires and wants. That is to say, enforced disappearance is meant to silence those that are perceived as being enemies or annoyances to the state, as determined by those that are at the upper echelons of that state.
So too, for those that are targeted to be disappeared, a significant purpose of why such disappearances occur, is to first isolate that individual, so as to make then that individual to be defenseless, and then to interrogate that individual in the hopes that actionable information will be extracted from them which can then be used to hurt or to disappear other individuals that are seen to be a nuisance or a danger to the state. An enforced disappearance for a given individual is typically not preferred over the usual arrest and charges, because what is so occurring by that disappearance is not only happening in secret, but because it isn’t public or known, means that it cannot be very effectively opposed; in addition to the fact that a forced disappearance thus serves to keep opposing or dissenting opinions at bay, because few ever would wish to be disappeared, themselves.