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ICCL calls for action on disappeared children

Dublin, 30 August 2019

On the International Day of the Disappeared, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has reiterated our call for the government to ratify the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances (CED). It is essential that government appropriately address the potential enforced disappearance of hundreds, if not thousands, of children from mother and baby homes and the ongoing legacy of harm caused by this.

In particular, we point to the failure to locate the burial site of 836 children at the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home and the failure to exhume the burial place of 796 children at Tuam as two examples of practices that could constitute enforced disappearances in this country.

Little Angels plot, Bessborough Mother and Baby Home

A roadmap to deal with Enforced Disappearances

The CED provides a roadmap for dealing with enforced disappearances. In its failure to implement this treaty, the government is missing an opportunity to follow international best practice in dealing with these gravest of human rights violations. Most worryingly, in continuing to pursue a policy of secrecy and even censorship of survivors, Ireland risks failing to ever bring the perpetrators of these rights violations to justice.

Map showing ratification of the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances. Ireland has signed but not yet ratified this treaty.

Obligation to Investigate

If it ratified CED, the State would be obliged to locate the remains of the 836 children who are missing from the Bessborough Home. It would also be obliged to prevent the withholding of information and to impose sanctions on those who have information and do not share it. The Mother and Baby Homes Commission has said they believe information was withheld from them, and indeed that Church bodies provided information which was “speculative, inaccurate and misleading”.

CED would require investigators to have the necessary powers and resources to conduct the investigation effectively. Through its continuing failure to compel witnesses to give evidence to processes of investigation, the State is helping to hide the truth and ensuring families of the disappeared remain in the dark.

Criminal Accountability for Perpetrators

If it ratified CED, the State would also be obliged to hold the perpetrators of these human rights violations criminally accountable. ICCL is concerned that the government’s current strategy of investigation is hindering future access to evidence, and thereby preventing prosecutions, by prioritising secrecy over transparency.

Evidence to be sealed for 75 years

We are particularly concerned that the Retention of Records Bill, which is currently passing through the Oireachtas, will seal evidence given to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the Residential Institutions Redress Board and the Residential Institutions Redress Review Committee for 75 years. This is particularly worrying given that An Garda Síochána could not carry out prosecutions stemming from the Ryan report because of the Commission’s similar terms of reference. In 2016, when the UN Committee Against Torture demanded to know why there had been no prosecutions, the State reported that the perpetrators identified in that report could not be named.

By knowingly continuing with its strategy of burying evidence, the State is set to repeat the abrogation of its responsibility to bring perpetrators to justice.

Illegal adoptions and possible Child Trafficking

This approach to potential evidence of criminal wrongdoing is inexcusable, particularly given all that has come to light over the past year, including the falsification of adoption certificates, the possibility that the state was complicit in what could be considered child trafficking, and the ongoing struggle of adoptees to access their basic information, including birth certificates. ICCL has repeatedly called for information to be provided to those who were illegally or forcibly adopted in Ireland during the twentieth century but the State has yet to respond appropriately.

Adoption ads appeared in the classified sections of the national newspapers in the 1950s and 60s

Despite numerous apologies and gestures towards restorative justice for survivors of the cruel and inhumane system of institutionalisation of the most vulnerable in this country, the State is still not living up to its obligations to survivors or families of victims. It must act to properly address the ongoing legacy and harm caused by the range of human rights violations that occurred in these institutions.

ENDS/

See more about our work on Institutional Abuse

Notes for editors:

The government has signed but not ratified the CED. This means it has signalled its intent to comply with the treaty but is not yet legally bound by it. ICCL has previously called for government to ratify CED.

Full text of CED: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/ced/pages/conventionced.aspx

For media queries:

Sinéad Nolan: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie 087 4157162

ICCL to Senators: Adoption Information and Tracing Bill fails to vindicate rights of adoptees

Dublin, 13 June

Yesterday morning ICCL sent the following email to all Senators in advance of the Seanad debate on the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2016.

From: Liam Herrick
Sent: 12 June 2019 11:04
To: senators@oir.ie
Subject: ICCL Position on Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill – this afternoon

Dear Senators,

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) shares the concerns of the Adoption Rights Alliance, and Dr. Maeve O’Rourke with regard to the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill, which will be before the Seanad this afternoon.

We note that you have already received detailed submissions on the Bill from both the Alliance and Dr. O’Rourke, which ICCL endorses.

ICCL is  particularly concerned that the Bill (and the newly introduced Governments Amendments) will:

  1. Fail to vindicate the human rights of adopted persons to effectively access information about their identity; and
  2. Potentially lead to further violations of the privacy rights of adopted persons.

The proposed amendments remove the obligation on adopted persons to sign an undertaking before seeking information about their identity. This will have some positive effects, including in cases where the natural parents are deceased.

However, the proposed amendments would instead establish a process of searching for, notifying, and giving a right to object, to any natural parents of that adopted person before any information can be disclosed. This constitutes a disproportionate and unjustified obstacle to access to personal information. In practice, we believe such a scheme will lead to unworkable delays in accessing information – e.g. it is not clear what level of obligation will be on Tusla to take steps to locate natural parents, or within what time frame.

It is not clear that the proposed system of hearings and appeals where a parent resists an application for information is compatible with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation relating to the right to access personal data.

More fundamentally, this approach places the rights of the natural parent on a higher footing than the rights of the adopted person. The adopted person would have no discretion about their natural parent being informed about a request for information (violating their right to privacy), but the parent would have a say about the release of that information – information that is essentially the personal data of the adoptee.

The Government claims that its approach is based on “legal advice”, but fails to outline to the Oireachtas what law(s) it is relying on. ICCL believes that the approach being taken is informed by an over-emphasis on the privacy rights of natural parents and a disregard for the rights to respect for private and family life of the adopted persons.

ICCL believes that this Bill presents an an important opportunity to address an urgent and ongoing human rights violation – one affecting many thousands of Irish people. However, we believe that the approach being taken by the Government is flawed and we would ask you to consider carefully amendments being tabled which will address the defects we set out above, and those identified by the Adoption Rights Alliance and Dr. Maeve O’Rourke.

This email has been updated from its original version.

Find out more about ICCL’s work on transitional justice for ‘historic’ abuse.

ICCL welcomes government decision to excavate grave at Tuam

Dublin, 23 October 2018

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has welcomed the announcement by the government to implement a multi-disciplinary framework, known as “humanitarian forensic action”, in order to identify the remains of those buried in an unmarked grave at the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam.

ICCL director Liam Herrick said:

“This is the only appropriate response possible by the State, given that the human rights violations against former residents of these mother and baby homes are ongoing. There are still people who are searching for information on what happened to their loved ones and those people have a right to that information, as well as to the broader truth of how the system operated”.

In August, ICCL said that the system of forcibly separating unmarried mothers from their children and of burying infants in unmarked graves could constitute a system of enforced disappearances, widely considered one of the gravest possible human rights violations. We called on the State to ensure that family members of children who were forcibly disappeared, either through forced adoption or unidentified burials while in institutional care, were given information about the children’s fate and whereabouts.

We today reiterate this call to provide rights to information to all those who survived this cruel and inhumane system. This means that the bodies of children in the Tuam grave must be exhumed and identified to the extent possible, and that all possible information about their circumstances of death given to their family members. It means that the Government must introduce legislation to provide explicit rights to personal files for adopted people, natural parents, all individuals who experienced institutional abuse, and the family members of those who died in institutions. The Government should also move to create an independent national archive of administrative records, personal records and witness testimony relating to the system of forced family separation in Ireland.

We reiterate our call on the Government to ratify the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which it has already signed but not yet ratified.

Enforced disappearance is recognised as a crime against humanity when widespread or systematic. Under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when a person is detained or abducted with the involvement of the State, following which the State refuses to disclose their fate or whereabouts. It is unique in international law in that it is considered an ongoing crime until family members have been informed by the State as to the fate and whereabouts of their relative. Last year a European Parliament Committee recognised that a similar system in Spain – that of the ‘stolen babies’ – constituted a crime against humanity.

ENDS/

For comment:

Liam Herrick: liam.herrick@iccl.ie 087 2351374

For media queries:

Sinéad Nolan: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie 087 4157162

Notes for editors:

The United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, UNGA Res 47/133 (1 December 1992) UN Doc A/RES/47/133 (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/47/a47r133.htm) explains that ‘enforced disappearances’ occur when

‘persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law’.

According to the UN Committee Against Torture, redress for crimes against humanity requires restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and the right to the truth, and guarantees of non-repetition. The UN Committee Against Torture General Comment No 3 on redress:

‘Implementation of article 14 by States parties’ (13 December 2012) UN Doc CAT/C/GC/3 para 2. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5437cc274.html

 

ICCL: Tuam and adoption scandals may involve enforced disappearances

30 August 2018

On UN International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has called on the State to ensure that family members of children who were forcibly disappeared, either through forced adoption or unidentified burials while in institutional care, are given information about the children’s fate and whereabouts.

Enforced disappearance is widely considered one of the gravest possible human rights violations, and is recognised in international law as a crime against humanity when widespread or systematic. Under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when a person is detained or abducted with the involvement of the State, following which the State refuses to disclose their fate or whereabouts.

Director of ICCL, Liam Herrick, said:

“The State-sponsored system of forcibly separating unmarried mothers and their children during the 20th century appears to ICCL to involve ‘enforced disappearance’, one of the gravest violations of European and international human rights law. Last year a European Parliament Committee recognised that a similar system in Spain – that of the ‘stolen babies’ – constitutes crimes against humanity. Ireland needs to wake up to the seriousness of what is at stake.”

ICCL is calling on the State to provide statutory rights to information to all those who survived the Irish system, including all people who were forcibly separated from their family members through the closed, secret adoption system in Ireland, as well as the family members of children who died in institutional care. This means that the bodies of children in the Tuam grave must be exhumed, identified, and all possible information about their circumstances of death given to their family members.

Mr. Herrick said:

“It is simply not good enough that Galway County Council conducted a straw poll as to what should be done in the Tuam case, including the option of simply covering over the site and placing a memorial there. The State is obliged to identify the children’s bodies, to conduct a full public investigation, and to provide guarantees that nothing like this can ever happen again.

We know that there are mass unmarked graves of children in places other than Tuam. We have heard adopted people and many others who were forcibly separated from their family members call repeatedly for information about what happened to them and to their relatives. Full disclosure of information is required. The secrecy must stop and the State must recognise its human rights obligations towards all of these individuals.”

ICCL is also calling on the government to ratify the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which it has already signed but not yet ratified.

Enforced disappearance is unique in international law in that it is considered an ongoing crime until family members have been informed by the State as to the fate and whereabouts of their relative.

ENDS/

Notes for editors:

The United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, UNGA Res 47/133 (1 December 1992) UN Doc A/RES/47/133 (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/47/a47r133.htm) explains that ‘enforced disappearances’ occur when

‘persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law’.

According to the UN Committee Against Torture, redress for crimes against humanity requires restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and the right to the truth, and guarantees of non-repetition. The UN Committee Against Torture General Comment No 3 on redress:

‘Implementation of article 14 by States parties’ (13 December 2012) UN Doc CAT/C/GC/3 para 2. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5437cc274.html

For media queries:

Sinéad Nolan: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie 087 4157162

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