Amnesty International describes child abuse in Ireland as torture under international law

A report issued by Amnesty International Ireland has declared that the abuse suffered by children at the hands of the State amounts to torture subject to international human rights law.

At the launch of a report on child abuse in institutions and the Irish State's response to findings of such abuse, Executive Director Colm O'Gorman described the abuse as "perhaps the greatest human rights failure in the history of the State." He stated "The true scandal is not that the system failed these children, but that there was no functioning system. Instead, children were abandoned to a chaotic, unregulated arrangement where no one was accountable for failures to protect and care for them." Amnesty have urged the Irish government to learn from the collective failure.

In her address to the conference, Minister Frances Fitzgerald of the Irish Department of Children and Youth Affairs commented that the abuse "reminds us that Irish children were subjected to treatment that would be horrifying if it were done to prisoners of war, never mind little boys and girls."

Click here to view more by Amnesty on this issue.

Click here to view the Amnesty report In Plain Sight.

Click here to view a piece by the Irish Times.

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