Restoring Dignity Inaugural Address

Public address on Child abuse in institutions Pier 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Monday, February 9, 2004

Roch Longuepe - Founder & President, Internations Justice Federation

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Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, members of the Federation, partners and friends. I want to express my gratitude to each of you for joining us today. My name is Roch Longuepe. I am the Founder and President of Internations Justice Federation based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I welcome each of you to the preliminary launch for this organization. The organization, currently being developed, advocates change in the standards of restitution respecting institutional child abuse. The federation also advocates change in the child protection standards involving current and future generations of children. My passion for this work is deeply rooted in my own personal experience. Though I am an advocate for change on this issue, I am also a survivor. Most importantly, I am here because I believe in something. I believe I can make a difference. And I am not alone. I am joined by others today. We are the victims of childhood exploitation and abuse. We are the former street children. We are the former children of war. We are orphans and victims of institutional child abuse. Our childhoods have been taken from us by those entrusted to protect and care for us. In the wake of that abuse, came poverty, homelessness, corruption, cultural eradication, mutilations, genocide and death. These institutions have built their future on our misfortunes. Today we come to reclaim that which was taken from us. I am also the man responsible for organizing the investigation and litigation against an orphanage where I spent five years of my life. That civil action against the Mount Herbert Orphanage in Prince Edward Island, Canada currently represents approximately sixty claimants, alleging physical, sexual and psychological abuse. The launch of that case was also the first time in history, the child welfare system of Prince Edward Island, Canada had ever been challenged. Shortly after the launch of that case, another case against a retired Nun who was inflicting severe physical abuse on children charged in her care was forced into the courts through public pressure. Today I will also be joining the many voices around the nation in calling their abusers to task. That announcement will be made after my address today by my legal counsels Mr. Richard Bureau with Morris/Bureau and Mr. Geoff Adair with Adair/Morse. Prince Edward Island, like so many other provinces has had a long history of neglect. This is the reason why bringing cases forward like these are essential to the prevention of abuse against societys most vulnerable. The courage of those who come forward is the essence of building conscience within our communities. Worldwide, these survivors are fast becoming the makers of change on this issue. They deserve nothing less than our profound respect and gratitude. Would you please stand with me now and join me in acknowledging their contributions? When those of us around the world first cried out for what we had lost, our adversaries responded by reducing our pain and suffering to statistical trends and numbers.

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Our adversaries erected 'feel good memorials to conceal the true measure of their crimes against vulnerable, neglected and abused children. They denied their victims a dignified burial. They authored apologies, only to reduce their liability. Our adversaries stigmatized us with labels. These labels are a faade to protect dishonourable institutions. This is a lie lies must be challenged. This pattern of denial has become a forum for invective. In a speech entitled "The Perils of Indifference", delivered to the White House, Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and novelist, wrote: Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor, never his victim whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. How will history remember the Government and Religious institutions for these crimes and failures, which have cast a dark shadow over humanity? The child Migration schemes, which ran from the 1670's to the 1980's. Alan Gill, author of "Orphans of the Empire, writes: "Child Migration was devised as offering underprivileged children a 'new start' in a fresh country. It was also a way for Britain to solve its social problems. It was a means of 'seeding the empire', and was pursued with missionary zeal. The children were not adopted out, nor were they, in the usual sense of the word, fostered. Though government sponsored, the sending and receiving agencies were for the most part Christian charities who shared this goal and saw their work as inherently noble. Some 35 charities were involved, including Dr.Barnardo's Homes (now known as Barnardos), The Fairbridge Society, the National Children's Home and Orphanage, Church of England, Advisory Council of Empire Settlement, Church of England Children's Society (earlier known as the Church of England Society for Waifs and Strays), The Catholic Council for British Overseas Settlement, also various Catholic religious orders, and the Sal vation Army. Most are now defunct. There w ere also schemes for older youths, best known being the Dreadnought and Big Brother Movement 'Youth' migrants actually outnumbered child migrants. (Here in Canada, some 100,000 children were migrated under child labor schemes) Halifax, Nova Scotias Pier 21, the location of this conference today, served as one of the many receiving ports during the child migration schemes. Alan Gill then concludes, The receiving Countries shared Britain's enthusiasm. The desire of the Dominions - in particular Australia, Canada, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to increase their white, preferably Anglo-Saxon populations coincided with the desire of the mother country to rid itself of excess children of the lower social orders." Evidentially, Canada's eastern seaboard is predominately Anglo-Saxon. The values that flowed from that time period are very much inherent in Canadian Society. The rippling effect of these values represents our governing political systems. Most people are so hopelessly dependant on that system that they will fight to protect it.

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In March 2000, the Law Commission of Canada authored a report on child abuse in Canadian institutions. As of the date of that report, over the last decade, more than 5,200 victims filed claims of physical and sexual abuse, cultural eradication, sterilizations, and genocide, involving over 70 residential schools. Many children also died due to the severe negligence and physical abuse at the hands of their caregivers. Here in Canada and worldwide, we are barely into the preliminary stages of these criminal and civil litigations. The province of Nova Scotia has been home to many institutions - nine in all. The majority of which have been embroiled in child abuse scandals. East Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada is the site of the infamous Ideal Maternity Home best known as 'the Butterbox Babies'. The Ideal Maternity Home operated from the late 1920s through at least the late 1940s. Operated by William and Lila Young, a chiropractor and midwife. The Ideal Maternity Home advertised itself as maternity care for local married couples and discreet birthing and placement for children of unwed mothers. The home was the source of babies for an illegal trade in infants between Canada and the United States. While the Youngs were tried for various crimes such as manslaughter, the true measures of their crimes were not widely known until much later. The Youngs would purposely starve "unmarketable" babies to death by feeding them only molasses and water. On this diet the infants would usually last only two weeks. Any deformity, a serious illness or "dark" coloration would often seal their fate. Babies who died were disposed of in small wooden grocery boxes, typically used for dairy products. Thus the term 'Butter box Babies' is used to refer to these unfortunate infants. The Butter box Babies bodies were buried on the property, adjacent to a nearby cemetery, at sea or sometimes burned in the homes furnace. In some cases married couples who had come to the home solely for birthing services were told that their baby had died shortly after birth. In truth these babies were also sold to adoptive parents. The Youngs would also separate or create siblings to meet the desires of customers. It is estimated that between four and six hundred babies died at the home, while at least another thousand survived and were adopted. Even these lucky survivors often suffered from ailments caused by the unsanitary conditions and lack of care at the home. - Excerpt from http://www.monmouth.com/~ssteinhauer/bckgrnd.html -by Steve Steinhauer and Ilene Seifer Steinhauer. Most recently in Ontario, Canada, the deaths of two thirteen year old children in residential care. In 1998, 13-year-old Stephanie Jobin died after being physically restrained by two staff members in an Ontario group home. In 1999, just months after Stephanies death, 13-year-old William Edgar died from asphyxiation because of a physical restraint in another Ontario group home. The death of 13-year-old William Edgar was later ruled a homicide. Worldwide there are mass gravesites of children buried in unmarked graves, their identities unknown. In Ireland, the industrial schools are embroiled in scandals of physical and sexual abuse, and the mysterious deaths of children. At the grounds of the Artane Industrial School, located in the county of Artane, Dublin, Ireland, lay a mass gravesite of children buried one atop of another in unmarked graves. It is estimated that around 120 children died in these institutions between the 1930s and 1970s.
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For those who survived, Fintan O'Toole, an Irish reporter for the Irish times once remarked; "The state to put it crudely had been remarkably good at taking vulnerable, neglected and abused children and turning them into drug addicts, prostitutes, and criminals." United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening statement to the General Assembly, addressing the children of the world said, ``We, the grown-ups, have failed you deplorably,'' he said, noting that 33 percent of youngsters suffer from malnutrition before the age of five, 25 percent are not immunized, nearly 20 percent don't attend school and far too many ``have seen violence that no child should ever see.'' In 1969 the Professor of Australia's Psychological Medicine at Monash University, Dr. Ironside stated at a child abuse seminar: "Future social historians will look back on this age as one in which, in the affluent societies at least, children were paradoxically deprived of their birthright in spite of increasing knowledge of the developmental requirements for healthy emotional, mental and personality growth. The future social historian will also note that legislation aimed at improving services for young children in need not only failed its praiseworthy objective but, paradoxically, contributed to the further deprivation for vulnerable children." Government and Religious institutions can no longer be trusted to cure themselves of this problem. For decades, Government, Religious, and secular institutions around the globe have possessed the ability - but not the will, to address the omissions and commissions they have committed against society's marginalized groups. Justice can only be served where those responsible must answer. Today, we send a clear, unequivocal message to those responsible for these crimes against us We are bringing you to Justice". Worldwide, our groups are gathering to engage our adversaries. The effects of abuse are strongly reflected in our corrective social programs and crime rates. From this point it is an issue of economics and societal ails. Governments expend more resources defending themselves than they do addressing the problem. It is now up to the survivor groups and advocates worldwide, to assist those who disclosed what they went through and those who did not; those who survived and those who died; those who have healed and who help others to heal.
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-5For if we possess the skill and the ability, we must act to assist the less fortunate among us. To those people in this cause, struggling to break free from the shadow of institutions past, let us pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required.

While we seek to enact just measures of restitution, how shall we price someone's childhood? The reality is, we cannot. However, if we are to move in the direction of addressing wrongs, we can begin only, by engendering a social conscience. First, and foremost let us seek to exercise our liberty and freedom. The freedom of speech, the right to express and communicate ideas, the right to recall governments to their duties and obligations; above all, the right to affirm our membership and allegiance to the body politic; to society. The power to be heard; to share in the decisions of government, which shape our lives. Everything that makes our lives worthwhile; family, work, education, a place to rear our children and a place to rest our head. We endorse the United Nations' Conventions on the Rights of the Child now ratified by more than 190 countries. More countries have ratified the Convention than any other human rights treaty in history. As we engage in that quest for Justice, let us also recognize that no individual human majority or minority can be expendable in the cause of theory or policy. Let every Government and Religious institution know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall remit any price, carry any burden, suffer any hardship, support any friend, counter any foe to assure the survival and the success of restitution and Justice for our people in every land. To the survivor groups and advocates in this cause, we say let us begin today to explore what issues unite us rather than divide us. Though we shall not always find ourselves always supporting each others our views, let us never fear to explore these uncharted territories of human understanding. The world is a revolutionary place. While we are the heirs to that revolution, let us commit ourselves to a peaceful and non-violent change. Let us seek foremost, to engender that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. For those victims who have not come forward, I would like to say that I know at times you must feel very alone with your pain and suffering. Though the search for an answer is often met with darker days, I am assured there is another way. Those of us leading this cause will not allow ourselves to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights which tear at the fabric of the life which countless victims have painfully and clumsily woven for themselves and their children. I also want you to know that many of us are determined to continue the quest for Justice and I hope you will often take heart from the knowledge that you are joined with others in every land that share your struggles. We are united in a common purpose. We are determined to build a future where the promises of humanity we seek, are at last fulfilled for all.

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Let us resolve never, to yield, to the cruelties and obstacles of obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans, nor cling to illusions of security. Friend and foe alike, we each share in the investment of peaceful progress. With a good conscience, our guide, may all our endeavours make way for a world where the strong are just and the weak safe.

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Internations Justice Federation Kindly Acknowledges the following Sponsors who made this event possible:

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