Redressing forced removals of Yenish children in Switzerland in the 20th century: An analysis through transitional justice lens

Elena Patrizi

doi:10.1177/09075682211061449

Abstract

‘A society that does not tackle the bitterest chapters of its past risks repeating the same mistakes – sooner or later'. These are the words pronounced by the Swiss Minister of Justice to apologise for the harm suffered by victims of coercive social measures. Apology is one of the measures established by Switzerland for dealing with the legacy of forced removals of Yenish children. Through an analysis of the reparation schemes undertaken in Switzerland, the article shows that relying on the theoretical framework provided by transitional justice facilitates making a critical assessment of reparation schemes for past child abuse cases.

Highlights

A series of recent events following George Floyd’s death in the United States in May 2020 has triggered a global movement of awareness about historical, and in this case racerelated, injustices
This study aims to contribute to the literature on childhood and children’s rights studies by extending the transitional justice discourse to reparations following forced child removals
Switzerland engaged in a process of reconstruction of past experiences and acknowledgement of past wrongs in order to tackle its legacy of injustices, using an approach that, as demonstrated in this article, belongs to the transitional justice discourse

Summary

Introduction

A series of recent events following George Floyd’s death in the United States in May 2020 has triggered a global movement of awareness about historical, and in this case racerelated, injustices. Over the past two decades, in response to surviving children’s claim and demand for justice, several countries have turned their attention to the historical wrongdoings which occurred in connexion to national child welfare systems, such as the systematic practices of child abuse and neglect in out-of-home care settings, and abusive practices of institutionalizing children without parental consent The latter include the Indigenous Australian child removal policy (McMillan and Rigney, 2018), the Indian residential schools system in Canada (Nagy, 2012), removal of Reunionese children to France (Gauvin, 2019), overseas child migration schemes in Britain (Boucher, 2014; Harper and Constantine, 2010) and forced removal of children to institutions or rural foster families in Switzerland (Hugger, 1998; Leuenberger et al, 2011)

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