mother and baby homes Archives - Irish Council for Civil Liberties

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 publishes follow-up report to UN Committee Against Torture

ICCL Follow-up report to UNCAT

This report by the ICCL was submitted to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) on 26 November 2018 and forms part of the process of ‘follow-up’ to the CAT’s second set of Concluding Observations on Ireland, published in August 2017. The CAT designated three of the recommendations in its August 2017 Concluding Observations as ‘follow-up’ issues, requiring a response from the Irish Government within one year.

In this report, the ICCL:

Demands that Ireland ratify the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and create a National Preventive Mechanism that independently inspects all places of detention in Ireland, including de facto detention in health and social care settings, and in Direct Provision.
Calls for swift changes to the powers and functions of the Garda complaints mechanism, and criticises the secrecy that characterises many investigations into alleged Garda misconduct.
Rejects the Government’s repeated claim that it knows of ‘no credible evidence’ that systematic torture or ill-treatment, or criminal abuse, was perpetrated in Magdalene Laundries and calls for a truth-telling process, and proper accountability and redress.

The ICCL’s report to the CAT in 2017 contributed to the CAT’s Concluding Observations along with the reports of numerous other NGOs working in Ireland.

The Irish Government’s Follow-up Report to the CAT was published in August 2018. This report by the ICCL provides further information to the CAT in relation to the three ‘follow-up’ issues.

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 20^th 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:

‘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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ICCL calls on State to provide information and records to all affected by forced and illegal adoption

Dublin, 30 May 2018

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) today welcomes the decision of Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone, to establish a process of investigation into illegal adoptions where adoptive parents were registered as natural or birth parents on the child’s birth certificate. We also welcome the Minister’s explicit recognition of the information and identity rights of people who have been adopted and agree that “people have the right to know of their true origins”.

We call on the Government to acknowledge fully the rights, particularly the right to information, of all people affected by Ireland’s system of forced and illegal adoption. This includes natural or birth parents, adopted people, and other family members of people forcibly separated through Mother and Baby Homes, adoption agencies, maternity hospitals, Magdalene Laundries and other institutions.

Director of ICCL, Liam Herrick, said:

“At present, the State is refusing to provide these individuals with information about their own identities, the circumstances of their separation, the whereabouts of their relatives who disappeared, and the system of forced separation of mothers and children that caused widespread and grave human rights violations from the foundation of the State until the 1990s.”

We note that Tusla has transferred records of illegal adoptions to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. ICCL has previously argued that the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 is not a suitable mechanism for providing information to people whose rights have been violated. The Commission is limited to investigating a small fraction of the institutions and agencies involved in separating women and their children, and it has refused to hold public hearings. Witnesses to the Commission are not allowed to have a transcript of their evidence, and it is a criminal offence for any person to publish evidence given to the Commission in private. The evidence being gathered by the Commission is not available to those who are affected by the issues, nor is the evidence admissible in later civil or criminal proceedings. The Commission is immune from individuals’ ordinary right of access to their own data under the Data Protection Acts, and it is also immune from the application of the Freedom of Information Acts.

Mr. Herrick continued:

“In addition to the secrecy of the Commission of Investigation’s process, adopted people do not have a statutory right to their own birth certificate or to the records relating to their early life, adoption or medical records. Mothers and other relatives are unable to discover what became of their family members. In this way, the abuses of the past are continuing. They are not ‘historic’.”

ICCL has raised the State’s continuing denial of information rights with several international human rights bodies, including most recently the UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children. We call on the State to implement the repeated recommendations of human rights bodies to ensure that all those affected by the past system of forced and illegal separation and adoption are provided with information, as a crucial part of redress.

Notes to editors:

In July 2017, the UN Committee Against Torture made the following recommendations regarding the system of forced and illegal adoptions in its Concluding Observations on Ireland’s second periodic report to the Committee:

Accountability for past institutional abuses: Mother and Baby Homes

While the Committee appreciates the State party’s creation of a Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in February 2015, it is concerned at reports that its terms of reference do not allow it to investigate all institutions in the country at which abuses, including forced and illegal adoptions, may have occurred and that following the expected conclusion of the Commission’s work in February 2018, its archives will be closed and will not be made available to the public (arts. 2, 4, 12, 13, 14 and 16).
The State party should ensure that it carries out an independent, thorough and effective investigation into any allegations of ill-treatment, including cases of forced adoption, amounting to violations of the Convention at all of the Mother and Baby Homes and analogous institutions, that perpetrators of any such acts are prosecuted and punished and that all victims of violations of the Convention obtain redress. The State party should ensure that information concerning abuses in these institutions are made accessible to the public to the greatest extent possible.

In May 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio visited Ireland and commented following her visit:

“The so-called historic abuses against children that took place in Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and industrial schools, among other settings, have a direct bearing on the Ireland of today. More remains to be done to provide sufficient information, justice and redress to those who suffered child sexual abuse and forced labour, or who were victims of illegal adoptions during dark periods of Irish history,” said Ms de Boer-Buquicchio.

“Accounting for these past abuses is a crucial step towards the future.”

ICCL: Commission of Investigation into cervical check may further violate rights

Dublin, 2 May 2018

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties is today calling for a public investigation into the cervical check scandal, rather than a confidential Commission of Investigation which it says will not ensure public confidence in the State’s ability to hold itself to account or vindicate the rights of women who are affected. It has said that it is imperative that any investigation which is set up must allow evidence to be used in criminal investigations.

The Taoiseach yesterday said a Commission of Investigation was one possibility for investigating the scandal, but the ICCL has said that this may further violate the rights of the women affected. In effect, a Commission of Investigation could be used to bury evidence.

In a statement, Liam Herrick, director of the ICCL, said:

“We have been calling for a review of the 2004 Commissions of Investigation Act for some time now because it simply does not provide for an effective investigation or remedy. The Act presumes that investigations will be conducted in private, and it is criminal offence carrying up to 5 years’ imprisonment for any person to publish evidence given in private. This means that people who are affected by the issues under investigation are not given the right to know or comment on the evidence being considered, and the archive of a Commission of Investigation is sealed from the public once the inquiry finishes.

Commissions of Investigation are not allowed to give their evidence to An Garda Síochána for the purposes of a criminal investigation, and they are expressly exempt from the ordinary obligation under the Data Protection Acts to provide individuals with records that are held on them. This system is totally inappropriate for investigating the serious questions that arise in relation to the Cervical Check scandal.”

In the ongoing Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters, for example, witnesses before the investigation committee are not permitted to have a transcript of their evidence. Neither are they allowed to see or comment on the evidence being provided by the State and Church institutions that were responsible for the Mother and Baby Homes. Furthermore, the Commission has not given reasons for refusing a number of requests for public hearings. Neither is the Commission obliged to provide individuals with personal records which it holds on them.

Liam Herrick said:

“The case law of the European Court of Human Rights is clear. Where there is evidence that the right to life has been violated or there have been grave interferences with private and family life, people have the right to an effective investigation. An effective investigation is one which involves sufficient public scrutiny to secure accountability in practice as well as in theory, and one in which victims are involved to the extent necessary to safeguard their interests. In addition, an effective investigation is one that is capable of leading to prosecutions where appropriate.”

Dublin, 2 May 2018

Notes for editors:

ICCL called for a review of the 2004 Commissions of Investigation Act in its submission to the Commission on the Future of Policing, p.25. The submission is available here: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/RIGHTS-BASED-POLICING-ICCL-submission-to-CFP-2.pdf

With regard to the ECtHR on effective investigation and involvement of those affected, in the case of Edwards v United Kingdom,[i] the ECtHR found that the parents of a man killed in prison were denied their right to an effective investigation notwithstanding that an inquiry, chaired by independent experts and assisted by lawyers, was commissioned by the Prison Service, Essex County Council and North Essex Health Authority and sat for 10 months and heard from about 150 witnesses. The ECtHR held that Mr and Mrs Edwards were not ‘involved to the extent necessary to safeguard their interests’ on the grounds that the inquiry was held in private and:

‘The applicants, parents of the deceased, were only able to attend three days of the inquiry when they themselves were giving evidence. They were not represented and were unable to put any questions to witnesses, whether through their own counsel or, for example, through the Inquiry Panel. They had to wait until the publication of the final version of the Inquiry Report to discover the substance of the evidence about what had occurred.’[ii]

[i] Paul and Audrey Edwards v the United Kingdom App No 46477/99 (ECtHR, 14 March 2002)

[ii] para 84

ICCL calls for action on disappeared children

A roadmap to deal with Enforced Disappearances

Obligation to Investigate

Criminal Accountability for Perpetrators

Evidence to be sealed for 75 years

Illegal adoptions and possible Child Trafficking

ICCL publishes follow-up report to UN Committee Against Torture

ICCL welcomes government decision to excavate grave at Tuam

ICCL: Tuam and adoption scandals may involve enforced disappearances

ICCL calls on State to provide information and records to all affected by forced and illegal adoption

Notes to editors:

In July 2017, the UN Committee Against Torture made the following recommendations regarding the system of forced and illegal adoptions in its Concluding Observations on Ireland’s second periodic report to the Committee:

Accountability for past institutional abuses: Mother and Baby Homes

In May 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio visited Ireland and commented following her visit:

“Accounting for these past abuses is a crucial step towards the future.”

ICCL: Commission of Investigation into cervical check may further violate rights

Contact ICCL

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A roadmap to deal with Enforced Disappearances

Obligation to Investigate

Criminal Accountability for Perpetrators

Evidence to be sealed for 75 years

Illegal adoptions and possible Child Trafficking

Notes to editors:

In July 2017, the UN Committee Against Torture made the following recommendations regarding the system of forced and illegal adoptions in its Concluding Observations on Ireland’s second periodic report to the Committee:

Accountability for past institutional abuses: Mother and Baby Homes

In May 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio visited Ireland and commented following her visit:

“Accounting for these past abuses is a crucial step towards the future.”

Contact ICCL

Sign up for our Newsletter

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