Historical Abuse—A Contemporary Issue: Compiling Inquiries into Abuse and Neglect of Children in Out-of-Home Care Worldwide

Abstract

Since the 1990s, abuse and neglect in institutions and in foster homes for children in out-of-home care have been reviewed by inquiries and truth commissions in several countries. State and federal or regional commissions have interviewed, set up hearings with, or collected written submissions from people who claim to have been subjected to abuse and neglect whilst in care. In many respects, truth commissions and inquiries into past abuse and neglect share features characteristic of transitional justice processes. However, said inquiries and truth commissions have only occasionally attracted attention in the broad scholarly field of transitional justice. The aim of the article is to compile inquiries into abuse and neglect in out-of-home care that have been conducted worldwide in order to frame the historical context in which these inquiries and truth commissions were set up. Furthermore, this article argues that a comparative perspective can highlight important epistemological issues, such as what knowledge is produced in the inquiry reports and how an historical understanding of past abuse and neglect of children in out-of-home care is framed. The article points out some possible areas for future research that may constitute a new interdisciplinary field within the field of transitional justice.

Keywords:

• Abuse
• Care leaver
• Child
• Foster home
• Inquiry
• Neglect
• Out-of-home care
• Transitional justice
• Truth commission

Notes

¹ This is the theme of my current research project, ‘Inquiries into child abuse and neglect in institutions and out-of-home care: a comparative perspective and a contribution to the international history of children in public care’, financed by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.

² Norway has conducted a national investigation on historical aspects of care in children's homes. However, this investigation has not interviewed care leavers but is rather based on a number of regional studies and research reviews. See NOU 2004:23.

³ Alongside transitional justice, a concept like restorative justice has been discussed by criminologists during the past decade. As K. Clamp and J. Doak stress, while the concept of restorative justice lacks a precise definition, an important feature is the underlying assumption that a dialogue between victims, perpetrators, and broader society can bring about healing aspects for victims and a better understanding of the causes that resulted in an offending act (Clamp and Doak 2012:342). Restorative justice can refer to the juridical practice of mediating between victim and offender that has frequently been used in countries such as Finland and Norway since the 1980s and 1990s, respectively (Albrecht 2010). It can also be applied to the establishment of truth commissions and symbolic reparations of past violations of human rights. In effect, there exists a paradigmatic overlap between the discourses of restorative justice and transitional justice (Clamp and Doak 2012:340–341). In relation to the topic at stake here—historical inquiries into past abuse and the neglect of children in out-of-home care—it is important to distinguish between restorative justice for quite contemporary crimes and restorative/transitional processes of bringing to justice past abuses and atrocities that would not necessarily have been regarded as crimes at the time of the events.

⁴ A search in the International Journal of Transitional Justice using the words ‘child’, ‘abuse’, and ‘inquiry’ resulted in 39 hits, but only one item explicitly considered inquiries into the abuse and neglect of children in out-of-home care.

⁵ One such organization is the Grandview Survivors' Support Group (GSSG), which during the early 1990s gathered women who had been in care at the Grandview Training School for Girls in Ontario. The GSSG negotiated a compensation agreement with the government. Another similar organization is Helpline, which began as a support group for men who had been inmates at St Joseph's Training School or St John's Training School, and during their time in care had suffered abuse and neglect from the Christian Brothers who ran these institutions. Helpline managed to negotiate compensation with the responsible institutions. See Shea 1999:28–29, 35.

⁶ Link-Up, an organization dedicated to reuniting Aboriginal families separated by the child transfers (child removal) was founded in the early 1980s (Attwood 2005:82). The Child Migrants Trust is a lobbying organization formed in 1987 by the British social worker Margaret Humphreys. The organization has worked to call attention to the British children's migrations to Australia, and to reunite child migrants with their families (Child Migrants Trust home page: http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/our-work).

⁷ A leading organization in Norway has been Rettferd for taparne (Justice for losers), formed in 1993 (converted to a foundation in June 1999). The first inquiry in Norway was conducted in the Bergen area in 2003.

⁸ Altogether 25 of the 40 truth commissions that Priscilla B. Hayner lists in her well-known survey cover 20 years or less (see Hayner 2011:256–284).

⁹ Some indications point to other nations considering conducting inquiries. According to a radio interview with Permanent Secretary Päivi Sillanaukee at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland, there are plans to establish a group within the Ministry that would be charged with investigating whether an inquiry similar to the Swedish one should be established in Finland. However, no group within the Ministry for working with these issues had yet been assembled when the radio programme Radar was broadcast on 9 March 2012. Listen to the programme at: http://arenan.yle.fi/radio/1593014/ (accessed 31 October 2012).