A/HRC/59/49 55. Double standards in the prosecution of those allegedly responsible for disappearances maintain cycles of impunity. When serious violations of fundamental rights occur at the external borders of the European Union, including pushbacks, most national court proceedings are significantly delayed or do not lead to the conviction of State agents, for example coast guard personnel, while survivors of shipwrecks are convicted, including in fast-track proceedings, for the same events.98 V. Obstacles in existing national, regional and international legal and policy frameworks A. Obstacles to data collection, search and investigation 56. Available statistical data on migrants going missing or being subjected to enforced disappearance remain incomplete and are often considered to be underestimated. 99 This is partly due to the fact that in the majority of cases the remains of persons who disappear on dangerous, remote and inaccessible migratory routes cannot be located and therefore are not recovered. In addition, because of limited access to detention centres, enforced disappearances in these contexts cannot be comprehensively accounted for. 100 The lack of firewalls between service providers and immigration enforcement authorities further leads to migrants fearing that law enforcement authorities could access data systems or share data-related information as part of immigration enforcement or criminal investigation. 101 Compounded by the reluctance of State authorities to adequately and promptly register migrant disappearances, these dynamics account for the high level of underreporting. 57. According to IOM, of 74,072 deaths and disappearances of migrants during the period from 2014 to 2024, two-thirds of migrants remain unidentified. Limitations in data collection further result in a lack of disaggregated data on nationalities/gender.102 58. The focus of investigations following incidents in which migrants have disappeared is often not on collecting the data necessary for the location and identification of disappeared migrants but is solely aimed at identifying individuals allegedly responsible for human trafficking. Furthermore, data on dead and disappeared persons remains fragmented due to the lack of a comprehensive reporting and data management system along remote migratory routes and across regions. 59. Certain complaint mechanisms are not accessible to family members due to overly bureaucratic and formalistic procedures, including the requirement of information that remains unavailable to relatives of disappeared migrants, thus halting further search efforts or discouraging them from initiating such procedures. 103 In Greece, family members of disappeared persons, who oftentimes do not live in the area where their relatives disappeared, reportedly bear the responsibility for finding them; they must indicate the exact location where the disappeared person was last seen in Greece before they can file a complaint. Since this information is generally not available, most inquiries at police stations do not trigger search operations or investigations. 104 Further obstacles include difficulties in accessing 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 See https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2024/guidance-investigating-alleged-ill-treatmentborders?page=8#read-online; see communication GRC 3/2023. A/72/335, para. 2. C. E. Bird and A. Shangraw, “The importance of accounting for the dead in migration”, Journal on Migration and Human Security, vol. 12, No. 3 (2024), p. 316. A/HRC/35/25, para. 68. IOM, A decade of documenting migrant deaths: data analysis and reflection on deaths during migration documented by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project 2014–2023 (26 March 2024), p. 3. R. C. Reineke and D. E. Martinez, “Excessive use of force and migrant death and disappearance in Southern Arizona”, Journal on Migration and Human Security, vol. 12, No. 3 (2024), p. 251. CED/C/GRC/1, paras. 74–75; Government of Greece, Regulatory Order 2/1985, article 12, “Search of disappeared persons”. 13