NORTHERN IRELAND
The Republic
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK Associated Press
June 03, 2013
DUBLIN — Experts investigating abuse within Northern Ireland children’s homes appealed Monday for victims living abroad, chiefly in North America and Australia, to provide testimony so that the full scope of trauma can be documented.
Northern Ireland’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry said it already has received abuse complaints from 271 former residents of about 35 orphanages and state-funded homes where children allegedly suffered sexual or physical harm. The investigation started this year and is supposed to publish findings and recommend compensation for victims by January 2016. It seeks evidence of abuse from 1922, the year of Northern Ireland’s foundation, to 1995.
Virtually all testimony so far has come from people living in Britain or Ireland. But investigators believe many hundreds of former residents have made their homes in the United States, Canada and Australia and want to hear their stories. They particularly suspect Western Australia could be a venue for much testimony, because scores of boys and girls in Northern Ireland state care were resettled there while they were still children.
The lead investigator, Sir Anthony Hart, said his fact-finding team was willing to travel overseas to collect testimony or cover witnesses’ travel expenses to come to Belfast.
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