Brazil

Since 2017, in coordination with the UN Development Program, ICMP has helped the authorities in Brazil to investigate missing persons cases. The current Framework provides a mechanism to deliver forensic anthropological training and DNA profiling of human remains and reference samples from families of the missing through to 2025. Under the project entitled “Strengthening Mechanisms of Transitional Justice in Brazil” (“Fortalecimento dos Mecanismos da Justiça de Transição no Brasil”), ICMP has helped to identify human remains, including those found in the clandestine grave at the Dom Bosco Cemetery in Perus, São Paulo. To date, ICMP has processed more than 1,000 post-mortem samples from Brazil.

A 1979 amnesty law protected perpetrators of political crimes committed for and against the military regime, and families of the missing have battled for decades to force the authorities to investigate cases.

In 2011, a federal task force took over work that had been started by families to locate the bodies of insurgents who fought against the regime from 1967 to 1974 in the Araguaia river basin in Central Brazil. In January 2017, federal charges were filed against two former army officers accused of leading an assault against the rebels.

The National Truth Commission, convened by President Dilma Rousseff, condemned the abuses of the military, and a federal amnesty commission began to provide compensation to some victims.

The Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances (CEMDP), part of the Ministry of Human Rights, has played a key role in the effort to investigate cases. A final report published by the government on 30 December 2022, in the final week of the Bolsonaro Administration, announced the conclusion of the work of the CEMDP, a move that was widely criticized since key elements of the CEMDP’s work had not been completed. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed concern about the dissolution and called for the search for those missing from the Dictatorship to be “integrated into a comprehensive public policy on disappearance systematically and rigorously implemented by independent, impartial institutions with adequate human and technical resources, ensuring communication and coordinated action with victims’ families.”

Brazil maintains observer status at ICMP’s Conference of States Parties.