Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Thu 25 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Fri 26 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Sat 27 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.00

All days
Go back

Thursday 25 March 2021 16.00 - 17.15
F-8 EDU09 Memorials, Redress or Support? Dealing with the Legacy of Historical Child Abuse
F
Network: Education and Childhood Chair: Jonathan Josefsson
Organizers: Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Pirjo Markkola, Johanna Sköld Discussants: -
Ólöf Garðarsdóttir : Gendered Discourses of Youth in Institutional Care in Post-war Iceland. On the Background of Public Investigations and Redress Schemes regarding Children and Youth in Public Institutions
Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Professor University of Iceland, olofgard@hi.is
Gendered discourses of youth in institutional care in post-war Iceland. On the background of public investigations and redress schemes regarding children and youth in public institutions
Paper proposed for a the ESSHC in Leiden 18–21 March 2020 in session on Memorials, redress or ... (Show more)
Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Professor University of Iceland, olofgard@hi.is
Gendered discourses of youth in institutional care in post-war Iceland. On the background of public investigations and redress schemes regarding children and youth in public institutions
Paper proposed for a the ESSHC in Leiden 18–21 March 2020 in session on Memorials, redress or support? Dealing with the legacy of historical child abuse - Network: Education and Childhood

Since the 1990s numerous public investigations have been carried out around the world on the historical abuse of children in out-of-home care and in many cases the media has played a central role in bringing to the fore the abuse and neglect of children in institutions. Just as in the case of Sweden and Denmark, men who had been in a corrective institution for boys in Iceland during the 1950s and 1960s came forward and described systematic abuse during their stay at the home. Only a week after the experiences of the boys’ home at Breiðavík were made public in February 2007, the neglect and abuse in institutions was debated in the parliament and in March 1, the Prime Minister put forward a governmental bill that proposed that commissions should be appointed to investigate the neglect and abuse of children in public institutions. The first public investigations addressed the boys’ home at Breiðavík, and the report dating from December 2010 showed boys who were placed at Breiðavík had been subject to hard work, violence and sexual abuse. Ten more investigations were carried out in the following years and eventually a redress scheme was created were 1,200 individuals received compensation from the state. For all institutions that were subject to the redress scheme the number of those receiving compensation was higher than the number of persons that were initially interviewed by the commissions. All in all, the number of care-leavers receiving compensation from the state was almost three times higher than the number of persons that had initially been interviewed by the commissions.
This paper looks at the discourse on two institutions that were subject to public investigations on abuse and neglect. In addition to the home at Breiðavík, a home for adolescent girls will be analysed. In both cases, those institutions received notable attention in the media at the time they were initiated and were eventually heavily criticized for systematic abuse in the form of hard work, battering and sexual assault. First the paper’s focus is on the contemporary debate of the institutions (during the 1950s and 1960s) which was heavily gender. Secondly, discourse in the wake of the public investigation carried out in recent years will be scrutinized. This part of the analysis includes an analysis of rationale of the redress scheme. (Show less)

Brigitte Halbmayr, Elke Rajal : The Construction of »Asociality« in Children and Young People. On the Stigmatization and Persecution of Deviant Girls in the National Socialist Era
The National Socialist State put a special emphasis on raising the »Aryan« youth firmly in its ideology. A seamless organisation of children and young people in National Socialist child and youth groups was therefore a major goal. This however only applied to those who were deemed worthy of the »National ... (Show more)
The National Socialist State put a special emphasis on raising the »Aryan« youth firmly in its ideology. A seamless organisation of children and young people in National Socialist child and youth groups was therefore a major goal. This however only applied to those who were deemed worthy of the »National Socialist Volkskörper«, the ethnic body politic, or who could be trained to be. Other children and youths who could or would not conform to the uniform lifestyle were threatened with persecution. This biologism, which was expanded to include social characteristics, allowed a permanent exclusion of »asocial« and »criminal« children and young people because relevant behaviours or socially induced characteristics were deemed »congenital« and thus »hereditary«. For instance attributions like »born criminal«, »liar«, »malcontent«, »enemy of the community«, »quarrelsome individual«, »loser«, »troublemaker« or »unsettled individual« were defined as innate characteristics of a personality.
Those participating in the construction of someone as »asocial« were mostly social workers, medical doctors, and directors of orphanages or similar institutions, but the Gaujugendämter, the district youth welfare offices, which collaborated with schools, Hitler Youth/League of German Girls, NS-Volkswohlfahrt (NSV, National Socialst People’s Welfare), youth welfare and institutions also played a significant role in monitoring, registering and combating so-called »problem children«. They also were the ones who implemented the »negative selection« of those children and youths regarded as »unfit« or »ineducable«. For those affected – many of them from socio-economically disadvantaged families – this meant being pushed around between different reform schools and possibly being admitted to a psychiatric clinic, or even internment in a so-called »Jugendschutzlager« (Youth Protection Camp), i.e. a concentration camp.
In my contribution, I would like to focus on the stigmatization and persecution of girls and young women as »asocial«. Social non-conformism, and in particular their (alleged) sexual behaviour – they were often accused of being »libidinous« – brought the girls to the attention of the authorities. Another frequent accusation was of being »work-shy«. Using biographical case studies from the so-called »Ostmark«, I will examine how the National Socialist welfare agencies contributed to the construction of »asociality«. I will also consider continuities in the welfare system as well as the continued effects of stigmatization in the concrete case stories after the end of National Socialist rule. (Show less)

Johanna Sköld, Bengt Sandin : Redressing or Excusing the Past? Child Sexual Abuse that didn’t Generate Compensation in the Swedish Redress Scheme for Abuse in Out-of-home Care
Memories of childhood traumas are crucial for legal processes that aim to offer redress to victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care. Additionally, archival records play a central role in order to prove, for example, custody or residency at a given children’s home or foster family. However, depending on ... (Show more)
Memories of childhood traumas are crucial for legal processes that aim to offer redress to victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care. Additionally, archival records play a central role in order to prove, for example, custody or residency at a given children’s home or foster family. However, depending on the design of a redress scheme, the requisites put forward and the interpretation of said requisites, the oral and the written sources can be weighted differently.
Our investigation is a part of a larger study of the limits of the current welfare state’s responsibility of past child abuse. We study the so-called Swedish Financial Redress Board (RB) in operation 2013-2016 with the mission to offer redress through monetary compensation to victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care. In total, the RB received 5285 applications for compensation. The Swedish processes is signified by unusual high proportions of rejected applications, resulting in more than a half of the applicants received no compensation at all. This underlines the need to critically evaluate how childhood memories (sometimes fragile, and partial), and archival records (sometimes quite difficult to track down) have been evaluated in the decisions.
In this paper we draw on a sample of 1225 decisions from the RB as well as interviews with archivists that were contacted by the RB to find information about applicants, in order to explore
a) how fact-finding in archives was organized – which kinds of archival information did the RB demand, and which were the challenges to obtain it?
b) how archival information was evaluated in relation to oral and written memories of childhood
c) what consequences for the decision the quality of archival information and the quality of oral and written memories of childhood trauma had – i.e. what kinds of shortcomings in narration of memory or archival information would be disadvantageous for the applicant? (Show less)



Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer