A/HRC/36/39 including States, in response to a questionnaire sent in December 2016. 24 The Working Group is grateful to the States, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and individuals who participated in the process. 50. The phenomenon of enforced disappearance of migrants is a modern-day reality and should not be ignored or underestimated. The increasingly precarious movements of migrants, including through long and perilous journeys associated, among other things, with the often increasingly rigid migratory policies of States focused on deterrence, have created a situation which exposes migrants to heightened risks of becoming victims of human rights violations, including enforced disappearances. 51. As outlined in the report, there is a direct link between enforced disappearance and migration, either because individuals migrate as a consequence of the threat or risk of being subjected to enforced disappearances in their country or because they disappear during their migratory journey or in the country of destination. This may occur either as a result of abduction for political or other reasons, or in the context of detention or deportation processes or as a consequence of smuggling and/or trafficking. However, States and the international community as a whole do not seem to be devoting the necessary attention to this issue. In addition, owing to both its nature and its transnational character States are turning a blind eye and prefer to transfer the blame elsewhere, be it to another State or to a criminal group. 52. Where the disappearances of migrants are carried out primarily by non-State actors but with the direct or indirect involvement of State authorities, those acts would clearly be characterized as enforced disappearances. There are also other cases in which migrants disappear as an involuntary but direct consequence of the actions of the State, for instance in the case of pushback, at land or at sea. While these may not, strictly speaking, be enforced disappearances, they may nevertheless trigger State responsibility in the context of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. 53. Thus, in view of the gravity and complexity of this phenomenon, it is essential that each State take this problem seriously and urgently strengthen measures to prevent and combat it at the national level. In addition, given its transnational character, States should reinforce cooperation with other States as well as with relevant international organizations at the regional and global levels. 54. In the light of the foregoing, the Working Group makes the following recommendations to States. 1. General Migration as a consequence of enforced disappearance 55. States should consider the risk or threat of being disappearance as a form of persecution falling within the scope refoulement and grant refugee status to persons who migrate to while also taking all necessary measures to ensure that they refoulement. subjected to enforced of the principle of nonflee from such conduct, are not the subject of Enforced disappearance of migrants 56. 24 8 States should: The responding States were El Salvador, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). Written contributions were also received from the following organizations: Groupe antiraciste de défense et d’accompagnement des étrangers et migrants; Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho; Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat; and Alternative Espace Citoyen. Kimio Yakushiji, on behalf of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, also contributed.