‘religious Ethos’ Victims Need Better Redress Mechanism - Report

By Dan Griffin
Irish Times
June 13, 2014

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religious-ethos-victims-need-better-redress-mechanism-report-1.1831412

Victims who have suffered at the hands of those motivated by “religious ethos” need improved mechanisms for redress, according to a new report.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has called on the UN Human Rights Committee to recommend that Ireland introduce “more effective, comprehensive and independent mechanisms” for “truth finding and redress” concerning victims of Magdalene laundries, symphysiotomy, mother and baby homes, and status-based employment discrimination.

The recommendation is the “overarching theme” in the ICCL’s fourth periodic examination of Ireland under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, according to the organisation’s director Mark Kelly.

The report also calls on the UN to urge Ireland to make provision for effective mechanisms to implement and enforce international human rights standards in Ireland, including the setting up of an independent National Human Rights Institution.

In addition, it calls for the empowerment of women and minority groups whose rights are not respected in Irish society in areas such as reproductive rights, recognition of Traveller ethnicity and the rights of migrants.

The 182-page document, launched this morning, brings together written questions the UN’s Human Rights Committee has asked Ireland, the State’s responses and an update on the country’s progress in implementing its human rights obligations under the Covenant.

Speaking at the launch, Survivors of Symphysiotomy chairwoman Marie O’Connor criticised the Government’s failure to initiate an “independent, impartial inquiry” into the childbirth procedure which left women with debilitating, life-long health issues. “All we have to date is a review,” she said.

Also speaking this morning, Hilkka Becker from the Immigrant Council of Ireland said the Government needed to deliver on its commitment to reform immigration legislation. “Nothing comprehensive has happened since 2008,” she said.

She highlighted the lack of reform, the lack of an independent appeals mechanism for immigration, the lack of a clear policy on dealing with immigrant victims of domestic violence as well as shortcomings in dealing with stateless individuals as issues which remain to be addressed.