Last year, Mexico’s official number of missing people grew to over 100,000 for the first time. This year it stands even higher with authorities announcing Tuesday that 111,916 people have been “forcibly disappeared” and never found again since records began in 1962.
The true number could be higher still, however, due to systemic issues with the country’s register of missing people, according to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances which reported the figure. For advocates and victims, it’s a sign that Mexico’s current administration is taking another “step backwards” since the register was conceived in 2018.
The UN said the national register still lacks a “clear and transparent methodology” or disaggregated data on the sexual orientation, gender identity, and socioeconomic and migrant status of victims, among other demographics.
The government register also includes no “mechanism for relatives of disappeared people to participate,” said the committee, also noting “the resistance of some authorities” to report to the centralized register, without specifying which authorities or where.
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