Hearing
of former wards of the state who were being detained in
‘institutional care’ between 1945 and 1975, before the
“Bundestag” Committee of the German Federal Parliament
for receiving and hearing Petitions from concerned members of the
public.
A hearing of former wards of the state who
were being detained in 'institutional care' is to take place before
the "Bundestag" Committee of the German Federal Parliament
for receiving and hearing Petitions, on 11 December 2006.
The
upcoming hearing is the result of a formal Petition brought before
the Committee by the registered Association of former Wards of the
State ("Verein ehemaliger Heimkinder e. V. ") on behalf of
its members by the chair of the Association [non-members, however,
are not for that reason necessarily excluded from the Petition].
The
pertinent points of the demands made contained in the Petition
are:
[1] the formal
recognition of former wards of the state who were being
detained in 'institutional care' as victims of all manner of the
violation of their human rights;
[2] formal
and binding provisions to be made to meet in full all
legitimate claims of the Petitioners that they may have against the
State and be entitled to as a consequence of the formal recognition
of the violation of their human rights;
[3] the
formal condemnation as totally unacceptable even by yesteryears’
standards of the practices of detention, correction,
discipline, incarceration, solitary confinement and "work
therapy" [brute force and brutality, and in many instances
practices of incarceration, solitary confinement, compulsion and
discipline going far beyond those which were even back then
referred to as "Black Paedagogy"] that were being used and
applied in order to compel children and minors to comply with all
orders they were given and all that was expected of them, including
all work requirements, whilst detained in ‘institutional care’
in Germany during the period from 1945-1975;
[4] the
clarification of the question of pension entitlements for
forced unpaid slave labour that children and minors were compelled to
perform in these institutions (predominantly in church enterprises
enjoying total tax-free status) under the failure of their
masters and proprietors at the time to pay relevant health and
superannuation contributions in respect of the work performed;
[5]
the formal recognition and admission
that all forms of forced unpaid slave labour that children and minors
were compelled to perform as wards of the state detained in
'institutional care' constituted an unlawful and illegal act on the
part of the perpetrators, proprietors and enforcers alike;
[6]
a formal undertaking and guarantee that
all costs for short and long-term current and future treatment and
therapy that these victims of institutional child abuse may require
as a consequence of current, recurring and residual traumata,
including all forms of post traumatic stress, resulting from their
unjust and unconstitutional detention and abuse, will be met by the
State, without fail;
[7] a scientific
study of this whole ingnominious chapter in the social history
of the German Federal Republic;
[8] the
consideration also, at the time when all these matters the
subject of this Petition are being considered, of all similar events
affecting former wards of the state who were being detained in
'institutional care' in the former East Germany [the former GDR –
where the same ingnominious things happened to children and minors in
'institutional care', although to a far lesser extent than in the
West];
[9] an actual open and
public hearing before the "Bundestag" Committee of
the German Federal Parliament for receiving and hearing Petitions,
where former wards of the state who were being detained in
'institutional care' and are now the subject of this Petition are
guaranteed an audience and will in fact be heard;
[10] an
exhibition accurately depicting the
institutional-life-situation of former wards of the state who were
being detained in 'institutional care' in Germany during the period
from 1945-1975 and of the conditions under which they were being
detained and forced to perform unpaid slave labour, an exhibition
which is not to exclude the desperate situation most of them found
themselves in following their release, and many of them continue to
find themselves in today, with a clear indication of how all these
negative experiences shaped the remainder of their lives to almost
every such individual’s serious detriment;
[11] the
formal acknowledgement of full moral and legal responsibility
by the State resulting from its failure to exercise duty of care (a)
from the State-enacted and over decades applied child-internment
policies and practices themselves and (b) from the totally inadequate
supervision and control – in many cases indeed the total
non-existence of supervision and control – over the
institutions in which these children and minors were being detained by
order of the State.
[12] the special
creation of an independent Supervisory-Body overseeing all
institutional care facilities currently existing or being planned
(including all aged care facilities), in order to ensure, that
similar abuses and human rights violations to those that former wards
of the state detained in 'institutional care' had to suffer and
endure in the past, in Germany, are not likely ever to occur again
either in the present or in the future.
It
is high time that Germany not only accept the constitutionally
guaranteed and by international treaty covered Rights of the Child,
but that it also without fail put into practice these Rights of the
Child and that it leave no doubt at all that human rights in Germany
apply to all citizen, adults and children alike, no matter what the
age of any particular person.
It
is high time that Germany begin to develop a real moral sensitivity
to the grave injustices perpetrated when human rights of an
individual are being violated and that it begin to realise and accept
that abuse of the human Rights of the Child are equally a crime
against humanity!
A detailed explanation and
elucidation of the circumstances and conditions, under which former
wards of the state who were being detained in 'institutional care'
had to live and undergo unpaid slave labour, can be found under
"Thema" [ @
http://www.vehev.org/Thema.html
].
A
questionnaire for those of the former wards of the state detained in
'institutional care' who wish to participate in a survey, can be
found here [ @
http://www.vehev.org/images/Fragebogen.pdf
].
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