International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members: Honoring Detained and Missing UN Staff Members – March 25

The Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members is a stark and solemn reminder of the plight endured by UN personnel throughout their service to the mankind in humanitarian and peacekeeping activities. It represents an annual commemoration which generates awareness that the staff have been placed in the line of detention, abduction, or disappearance, and stresses upon the need for awareness, protection, and advocacy for the defense of this class of staff who are committed to risking their all for global peace and security.

Role of the UN in Protecting its Staff:

The day shall serve as a day for the UN to issue an urgent call for the protection of its staff members. It calls for governments, organizations, and international community irrespective of status or power they may carry to do whatever is possible in their means to protect any of the UN personnel, who work in dangerous frontiers providing humanitarian relief, protection for refugees, and mediation support to conflict areas. UN calls upon the member states to respect international laws that protect its employees and to denounce and bring to justice anyone who threatens or harms them.

Remembering Those Who Paid the Ultimate Price:

One of the most tragic cases of a UN worker being abducted happened to Alec Collett. He had been working for UNRWA when he got kidnapped by armed militants on March 25, 1985. Collett disappeared and was never found until 2009, when his remains were found at the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Because of his ordeal, he has become a sad reminder of the hardships that UN personnel have to deal with, and of the need to ensure the world works hard to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening.

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Challenges Faced by UN Personnel:

Many UN workers tend to be in places where near-perennial armed conflict, lack of law and order, political unrest and related criminally fanatical conditions are normal. This work is notable solely for being carried out under the aegis of such a reputable global organization, yet its operational realities are quite different. So often, personnel tend to be targets of various armed groups who perceive the U.N. workers as political assets to be used in exchange for the ransom exploited out of the unsuspecting by the lawless generation. At least 28 UN civilian staffs were detained in the year 2010 alone, arrested in incidents directly related to their work with the Department of Safety and Security, suggesting that life is dangerous for the workers in the service of the United Nations, marking a stronger need for international articulation and action.

What the Day Stands For

Were we only to think about looking back with the least hope, the International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members would not just be sitting-around-and-crying sort of keeping in memory. Losing one unity day on insisting on global solidarity for maintaining the safety of the personnel and urging the governments to act against the perpetrators of such crimes. Its primary aim is to engage other organizations and individuals into concrete efforts for seeing that justice is meted out to those who have been forcefully kept in detention or have had their lives put at risk.

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How Men could Support

The day may be no public holiday but might be marked by individuals and organizations in meaningful ways. Men could join in the following ways:
• Spreading it on social media and making popularities of that spirit with the digital revolution.
• Supporting organizations dedicated to the protection of humanitarian workers.
• Advocating for policies that make them safe.
• Truly observing a moment of silence in remembrance of those that committed their lives to the cause.

Continued Action

The service of UN staff is indeed key to the attainment of peace, the providing of aid, and the protection of some vulnerable global people. The world community that has fostered this kind of danger must shoulder the brunt and agitate for their outright security. The Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members is equally an annoying reminder that their happiness is dying in pursuit of security.