Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to the government of Zimbabwe on (a) the provision of information on Itai Dzamara and (b) the ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

Since the abduction of human rights defender Mr Itai Dzamara in March 2015, the UK has worked closely with international partners to raise awareness of his case and to put pressure on the Government of Zimbabwe to investigate it. We regularly raise Mr Dzamara’s disappearance in the course of our discussions with the Government of Zimbabwe. Following a number of statements in 2015, the EU Delegation to Zimbabwe released a further statement on 9 March, in agreement with EU Heads of Mission in Zimbabwe, marking the one year anniversary of Mr Dzamara’s disappearance and expressing its deep disappointment at the lack of progress in this case. We urge the Government of Zimbabwe to take effective steps to prevent the disappearance of human rights defenders and other activists and to investigate existing cases.

The UK is not a signatory to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and therefore has not made representations to the Government of Zimbabwe to ratify it. However, there is an existing UK framework which protects human rights, prevents arbitrary arrests and holds national security organisations to account.