In 2025, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), in partnership with the Global Learning Hub for Transitional Justice and Reconciliation, conducted research to explore the gendered impacts of the search for victims of enforced disappearances through the eyes of six women from Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
The research paper, In the Shadow of Absence: Women Searching for the Disappeared in Indonesia and Timor-Leste, shares the findings on how searching disrupts women’s lives, especially in the economic, social and emotional spheres, and how they navigate stigma, state inaction and deep personal grief.
Using participatory methods developed over years of working with survivors, the research centres their voices and offers practical recommendations for institutional responses to support women’s search for the disappeared.