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Weekly Prayer Cycle Pentecost 11

August 17, 2014

By Suzanne Rumsey

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Week of August 24 (Pentecost 11) ““ International Day of the Disappeared (August 30)

Scripture:  Exodus 1:8-21
Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.  Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.  The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.”  But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?”  The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

PWRDF Story:  Remembering the Disappeared by Suzanne Rumsey, PWRDF Public Engagement Program Coordinator

On the wall of my cubicle at the PWRDF office is a poster I was given in 1991 as I began a decade of work with the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America (ICCHRLA), one of the predecessor ecumenical coalitions of KAIROS.   It is an image of three women looking ahead and upwards and the caption reads: “The days go by, the night becomes interminable, and the persistent question becomes even more cruel, where are our loved ones?”

August 30, the International Day of the Disappeared, draws attention to the fate of individuals abducted or detained by agents of the state (or those acting with support of the state), and held in locations concealed from their relatives and legal representatives. Forced disappearances violate fundamental human rights, such as the right to be exempt from arbitrary arrest and detention and the right to liberty and security. They inflict terrible suffering upon victims and their loved ones, some of whom will never learn the fate of their family member, partner or friend.

The initiative for the Day came in 1983 in the midst of an alarming rise of disappearances by authoritarian regimes in Latin America. From the 1970s through the 1990s, a total of several hundred thousand people in countries such as Guatemala, Argentina and Chile were disappeared. The Latin American Federation of Associates for Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM) led the campaign to establish the Day.  Through ICCHRLA the Canadian churches partnered with FEDEFAM for almost three decades.

Today, PWRDF partners with the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Women’s Human Rights Centre, CEDHEM), based in Chihuahua, Mexico.  The Centre provides legal support to the families of this northern Mexican state whose daughters, wives and mothers have been systematically disappeared and/or assassinated, the latter practice known as feminicide.  The Centre carries out advocacy work with various levels of government.  It also provides education and psychosocial accompaniment to women and their families who have been victims of various forms of violence.  (See the Concluding Prayer below. For an article about CEDHEM and its work go to: https://pwrdf.org/2010/bell-tolls-for-justice-1320683257/)

In recent years, activists, NGOs, courts and international organizations have increasingly sought to prevent enforced disappearances and obtain retroactive justice for victims. In 2006, the United Nations adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICCPED). Yet disappearances remain all too frequent. In particular, enforced disappearances play a major role in the crisis in Syria. Human rights groups estimate that anywhere between 10,000 and 120,000 Syrians have been forcibly disappeared by security forces. Activist groups worldwide continue to urge states to ratify ICCPED (as of August 2013, only 40 have done so) and call for truth and justice for victims past and present.

(Sources: Human Rights Education Associates, Amnesty International, the United Nations)

For Reflection:  In the reading from Exodus we hear of Pharaoh’s efforts to “disappear” the Israelite male babies and of the efforts of the mid-wives, Siphrah and Puah, to outwit Pharaoh; a powerful example of the courage and determination of the “weak” to resist violence and oppression of the “strong.”  Through the years organizations such as FEDEFAM and CEDHEM have acted as those latter day mid-wives, in their determined search for justice with and on behalf of the families of the disappeared in Latin America.  Can you think of a time in your life when you had to “resist” someone or some organization more powerful than you?  Or have you encountered such a person or organization that has had to do so?  Regardless of the outcome, what do you think gave you or them the strength and courage to do so?  What did you learn from that experience or encounter?

Concluding Prayer:

Prayer of a Disappeared Person by the Centre for Women’s Human Rights, Mexico
They violently snatched me away from my life,
From my family, work, friends, school
A hurricane of injustice and torture carried me away,
I could not say, “˜goodbye;’ nor could I say, “˜I love you,’
They robbed me of my dreams, my hopes.

Pain and anguish floods the life of my mother
Depression and impunity overwhelm my father
I see solitude and uncertainty in my spouse
My children live in fear, without hope
My family and friends do not know where I am, if I’m alive, how I am, if I am cold,
Their dreams, the bread of the table, peace, security were torn from them.

The authorities blamed and insulted us
They justified their incompetence to deal with our honour
They denied us justice and delighted in their lying and complicity
They considered me a statistic, a number, a lost cause.

But fresh winds of solidarity clothe those who love me
They accompany, guide, help, demand, denounce,
They too are slandered and threatened
Nevertheless, together with my loved ones they struggle for peace with justice and dignity
They construct loving networks of solidarity
Woven with threads of hope, of struggle, of faith.

I want to return to my loved ones, to hug them
To thank them for their loving search
If this is not possible
I want a flower, a prayer on my grave.

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