On Women’s Day ICCL calls for access to documents, inquests and a full systemic investigation
8 March 2021
Abuse which could be considered torture, enforced disappearances, modern slavery. These are just some of the wide-ranging and systemic human rights violations which the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has identified from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report. To mark International Women’s Day, we have published our analysis of that report, and what the government must do to put things right.
ICCL’s Head of Legal and Policy, Doireann Ansbro, said:
“It’s perplexing that the government chose to ignore advice from the State human rights body, IHREC, that this report take a human rights approach. It means these rights violations were not identified for what they are. Worse still, it means the recommendations for reparations are not sufficient for government to meet its human rights obligations.”
Despite not using a human rights lens to investigate the abuses, evidence of human rights abuses leap off many pages of the Commission’s report. We identify arbitrary detention, violations of the right to life, abuse amounting to torture, modern slavery, enforced disappearances, violations of the right to a private and family life, and discrimination on gender, race and socio-economic grounds. We also identify that survivors’ rights to an effective remedy and to information about their identity are violated on an ongoing basis.
We recommend that the State follow the four pillars of the UN transitional justice framework on the right to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence in order to remedy these violations.
To vindicate the right to truth, the state must investigate the entire system of incarceration of unmarried mothers and their children and establish exhumation and inquest systems where necessary. It must also immediately provide information about identity to survivors, as well as investigate the circumstances around destruction of testimony provided to the Commission.
To vindicate the right to justice, An Garda Síochána should initiate criminal investigations into potential criminal activities. Likewise, GSOC must investigate An Garda Síochána’s role in the violations.
To vindicate the right to reparation, the state should provide a generous and uncomplicated compensation scheme which would include healthcare, housing and other appropriate supports.
And to ensure that nothing like this can ever happen again, the State must memorialise those who died or suffered, keep public records and engage in public education around what happened. Importantly, it must also provide human-rights focused inspections of all places of detention and residential care.
ENDS/
Find ICCL’s full analysis of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report here: https://www.iccl.ie/iccl-mbhc-briefing-note/
Find a press briefing here: https://www.iccl.ie/press-briefing-iccl-analysis-of-mbhc-report/
Take Action! Call on your TD to grant adoptees access to birth certs now: https://www.iccl.ie/news/adopted-people-need-access-to-birth-certs-now/
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights campaigning organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign to secure human rights for everyone in Ireland.
For comment: Doireann Ansbro, Head of Legal and Policy
For media queries: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie