Remembering abuses
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Holding an international tribunal to raise awareness of and seek reparations for sexual war crimes

A network in Asia organized an international tribunal to preserve the memory of abuses that occurred decades before, and to demand compensation.

Mapping personal histories to reclaim a place in history, recover lost land and promote social justice

The District Six Museum in South Africa spearheaded the land claim which ultimately recovered the property and the dignity people had lost in forced removals under apartheid and continues to be a space where people can collect, disseminate and exchange memories of the neighborhood.  In 1966, as a result of the Group Areas Act, the racially integrated neighborhood of District Six in Cape Town was razed to the ground to make way for a new “whites only” development, but construction never took place. As part of a campaign to defend the land and community integrity, a group of former residents built an exhibition with a map of the old area as the central installation.  They covered the floor of a Methodist church with a detailed map of their destroyed neighborhood and invited their neighbors to place their homes, streets, stores and community spaces on it.

Creating a venue on the Internet for former child soldiers to share their stories and develop new skills

Launched in 2000, The Child Soldier Project of iEarn Sierra Leone created a website for former child soldiers to share their stories. www.childsoldiers.org featured the essays, poems, artwork and voices of former child soldiers and offered an online forum. iEarn Sierra Leone visited schools, hospitals and camps, aired radio announcements and published newspaper articles to inform former child soldiers about the project. At the beginning of the program, participants were tutored in reading and writing, basic word processing and computer skills. When participants became comfortable with computer use they used the website to share their thoughts and experiences. Galleries of former child soldiers’ accounts, drawings and voices prompted support and solidarity from people around the world.

Opening police files to victims of abuse to promote justice and healing

The Centro de Documentación y Archivo (CDyA) opens police files to the public to contribute to justice and healing in Paraguay.  The discovery of an immense cache of files in a small Paraguayan police station by a former political prisoner in December 1992 led to the creation of the CDyA.  This archive is commonly known as the “Archive of Terror” because of the nature of the files it contains.  These files document prisoners’ detention experiences in detail and have been used to corroborate individuals’ stories of detention during several Latin American dictatorships, to confirm the disappearance of citizens, and as evidence in the prosecution of former police and military personnel in several Latin American countries.

Working with local communities in the forensic investigation of genocide

The Guatemalan Anthropological Team (EAFG) coordinates its efforts to exhume the victims of genocide and investigate their deaths with the local indigenous populations. This helps the families and communities of the victims to confront the tragedies and their own grief while learning what happened to their loved ones.

Mobilizing public resources for victims of human rights violations

ICAR Foundation in Romania mobilized public resources for the victims of human rights violations in order to get the State to take full responsibility for its actions by acknowledging and treating former political prisoners justly and humanely. Over nearly a decade, ICAR succeeded in getting the State to use public resources to assist in providing first the physical premises for torture treatment centers, and then the right to free medicines and insurance coverage for the specialized care and services that torture survivors required.

Creating a written history based on oral testimony to help people in isolated communities understand the full extent of the war

As part of the on-going REMHI (Recovery of Historical Memory) Project, several dioceses of the Catholic Church in Guatemala have mobilized their own members to collect testimonies from victims of state violence and, now that these have been compiled into a 4-volume report, to disseminate and return that history to the afflicted communities and individuals.  During Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, close to 200,000 people were killed or disappeared and entire villages and communities were destroyed, primarily by state security forces.   REMHI’s approach has been unusual relative to other truth and reconciliation efforts in its grassroots mobilization of individuals from the afflicted areas as “agents of reconciliation” and in those individuals’ efforts to thoroughly involve and interact with the victims.

Sharing files on the disappeared to contribute to healing from genocide

The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) collects records of the victims of the Cambodia genocide in order to offer families and friends an opportunity to learn the precise fate of the disappeared.  DC-Cam was established to keep the memory of the Cambodian Genocide of April 1975 to January 1979 alive through the Family Tracing File System.  Once family and friends have collected this invaluable information, they can feel a sense of closure.  This service is provided to encourage Cambodians to address their country’s past, with the hope that this will allow them to heal from the trauma of the genocide.  At the same time, DC-Cam is also on a quest to find legal evidence that can be used against former Khmer Rouge leaders in a court of law to further bring justice to the people of Cambodia.

Using forensics to investigate human rights abuses

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense – EAAF) has pioneered the use of forensic anthropology in the field of human rights. The EAAF works to identify the remains of victims of state violence during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-1983), a period during which 10,000 to 30,000 people were killed or simply “disappeared” by the state. Its goal is two-fold: to return victims’ remains to their families and thus aid in the healing process, and to provide evidence for legal cases against the perpetrators of state violence.

Using a Truth Commission to promote justice and reconciliation

I'll Walk Beside YouThe Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established by national legislation in 1995, after a period of public debate. Its mandate was to collect information about gross human rights violations committed by state bodies or the armed opposition during apartheid. The goals were reconciliation through public airing of the wrongs and healing for all involved.