Respect For Victims Research Articles

The Expressive Function of #VictimsLaw: Developing a Substantive and Enforceable Framework of Rights and Remedies in Response to Local Need and the Emerging forms of Victimization

All too often, the law fails victims because it is placatory and unenforceable. The law fails to provide real support and redress when victims need it. Recent international attention has moved to consider the benefits of a victims’ law, one that provides for recognition, dignity and respect for victims by enhancing victim agency through a type of justice which is both substantive and enforceable. It aims to provide higher levels of transparency and accountability of public officials, including the police, prosecution and courts. Such a law builds upon previous attempts at enforceable rights by ascribing a more comprehensive human rights framework compatible with the fair trial process, by granting victims the right to be informed, present and heard within the investigative and trial process more broadly. This article will consider the feasibility of a victims’ law by examining what it offers the recently addressed or emerging forms of victimization. Three examples trending on the #victimslaw hashtag are selected for analysis—domestic and gendered violence; modern slavery and servitude; and coercive control, cyber-abuse and harm. The extent to which a victims’ law provides a meaningful way of ratifying international standards and norms against domestic law and policy is assessed against the needs of those most vulnerable victims of abuse and neglect.

Making Sense of Social Work’s Troubled Past: Professional Identity, Collective Memory and the Quest for Historical Justice

AbstractSocial work historiography has neglected to engage meaningfully with the most troubling aspects of the profession’s past: the histories of complicity, or at least acquiescence, in acts of state violence and institutionalised oppression. Through the exploration of historical case studies, this article provides a tentative typology of social work’s ‘horrible histories’ focusing on the project of engineering the ideal-type family, in colonial and oppressive socio-political contexts. The authors argue that practices of oppression and complicity can neither be reduced to the ‘few bad apples’ approach nor judged through the individualising prism of moralism, prevalent in Kantian Ethics. Instead, they propose an ethics of transformative reconciliation which is based on the principles of apology, respect for victims and collective action for—professional and social—change.

Trafficking in Human Beings for criminal exploitation from the perspective of victims and professionals

According to a human rights or victim-centred policy on human trafficking, respect for victims’ rights must become a priority. However, this approach may become difficult to adopt in little-known forms of trafficking, such as trafficking aimed at the criminal exploitation of victims. In this work, 10 in-depth interviews with unidentified victims of this type of trafficking – selected from 45 imprisoned women interviewed – and 37 with professionals active in the criminal justice system and in the area of victim assistance have been used to analyse the causes that lead to victims not being identified, as well as the effects that this lack of identification produces when they pass through the criminal justice system. Different measures to encourage the development of a more victim-centred policy in this area as a way to contribute to the promotion of a more just and inclusive society are among the proposals formulated to reverse this situation.

Who visits the apartheid museum and why? An exploratory study of the motivations to visit a dark tourism site in South Africa

PurposeThis paper attempts to fill the gap that exists in research regarding visitor motivations at dark heritage sites. The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations of visitors to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum (HPMM) as an iconic dark site in South Africa to identify what motivates visitation and which demographic variables may have an influence on these motivators.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the goal of this research, 205 participants completed a self-administered questionnaire using a random sampling technique at the HPMM. A statistical analysis through the use of factor analysis revealed seven motivational factors.FindingsNovelty and knowledge seeking, remembrance and curiosity were identified as the three main motives for visiting HPMM. Novelty and knowledge seeking was found to be the main motive that contradicted similar research done in other parts of the globe. Escape and relaxation, which is usually found to be one of the main motivators to heritage sites, was revealed to be one of the least motivators for this study. The results also identified significant relationships between demographic and motivator variables.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study revealed that people visit the HPMM primarily for novelty and knowledge seeking, remembrance and respect for victims and curiosity. From the results, it is clear that visitors are driven to visit the site for different motives and that these motives, although common amongst visitors, differ from person to person subject to demographic differences. This study provides an improved understanding of dark tourism demand, which is essential for the sustainable development and promotion of sites in South Africa and globally commemorating people’s struggle against injustice and for democracy.Social implicationsSouth Africa is a country with a cosmopolitan history; however, the history associated with apartheid has only recently become topic of tourism research. This study provides a basis to better understand the type of tourist visiting these sites of historical sites, thus leading to better provision of services to visit such attractions.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to delve into understanding the motivational typology of tourists to a tourism attraction in South Africa associated with the country’s Apartheid-era heritage. It provides an insight into enhancing the current fragmented understanding of dark tourism demand.

미국의 범죄피해자의 법적 권리에 관한 고찰

Victims’ rights are legal rights afforded to victims of crime. The Crime Victims’ Rights Movement in United States is based on idea that American justice system strayed too far from its victim-centric origins. From 1970s, movement has worked to give victims a more role in criminal proceedings, aiming at inclusion of the individual victim as a legally recognized participant with rights and interests. Since 1982, thirty-three states have defined victim’s rights in their state constitutions. In 2004, landmark Crime Victims’ Rights Act was enacted and permitting victims eight specific rights, and providing standing for individual victims to assert those rights in court. The Act grants victims following rights: 1. The right to protection from accused, 1. The right to notification, 1. The right not to be excluded from proceedings, 1. The right to speak at criminal justice proceedings, 1. The right to consult with prosecuting attorney, 1. The right to restitution, 1. The right to a proceedings free from unreasonable delay, 1. The right to be treated with fairness, and respect for victims’ dignity and privacy This study examined these victim’s rights and suggested recommendation to improve victim’s rights in Korea.

Reconciliation Discourse: The Case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (review)

Reviewed by: Reconciliation Discourse: The Case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Emily B. Rodio (bio) Annelies Verdoolaege. Reconciliation Discourse: The Case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008. 238 pp. ISBN 978-90-272-2718-8, Euro105, $158.00 (hardbound and ebook). Verdoolaege’s text is an interesting addition to the vast literature on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). While other scholars have focused on the Commission’s structure, function, psychotherapeutic qualities, and impact, Verdoolaege innovatively takes a linguistic approach to the TRC. Adopting a Foucauldian understanding of discourse and archives, Verdoolaege argues that a multifaceted and multilayered “reconciliation discourse” was constructed through the interactive process of the Commission. As such, the TRC was an inclusive, national process, which extended its institutional power through discourse creation. While not everyone will agree with Verdoolaege’s conclusion, as criticism of the Commission’s work and outcomes are substantial, her approach opens the door to another dimension of truth commission inquiry. [End Page 363] Verdoolaege’s analysis centers on the testimony of victims at the Commission’s Human Rights Violation (HRV) committee hearings. These hearings, the crux of the TRC, included over 1,800 victim testimonies about the violations they or their family members experienced under the apartheid system. A nontraditional autobiography, the testimonies formed a new authoritative, collective narrative in South Africa, where the torture, crimes, disappearances, and murders had been denied for generations. Verdoolaege analyzes a descriptive sample of thirty testimonies in her work, representing key factors such as ethnic background, political affiliation, gender, and attitude towards reconciliation, among others. The testimonies are examined in print and audio-visual form, which allows the author to include important physical data including body language, gestures, and facial expressions. The core of Verdoolaege’s book is an empirical chapter critically assessing the testimonies according to three types of layering: ideological, historical, and identity. Almost a hundred pages in length, this chapter would have benefited from a division into three. Nonetheless, the author clearly and accessibly deconstructs the archive of the HRV testimonies. In terms of ideological layering, Verdoolaege argues that commissioners consciously constructed a master narrative centered on reconciliation, national unity, respect for victims, and an emphasis on emotions. In doing so, they encouraged and discouraged victims to say certain things, leading a victim as witnesses are often led in courtrooms. For example, commissioners used collective terminology to dispel ideas of “us versus them” and directly urged victims to embrace reconciliation. The testimony of a woman whose husband was killed by a rival political group demonstrates this idea: REV. XUNDU (TRC Commissioner): Thank you Mr. Chairperson. Mam, I heard your story. I only have one question. According to you what can be done so that there can be peace? Is there a conflict between yourself and this other group? MRS. PAPU (Victim): What I want is for them to come forward and tell the truth. REV. XUNDU: You are saying that reconciliation can be built if they can come forward? MRS. PAPU: Yes, if they can come and tell the truth. REV. XUNDU: If they can come forward you will forgive them? MRS. PAPU: Yes. (62) [End Page 364] For historical layering, the author finds that victims and commissioners consistently linked the past, present, and future to purposefully stress the lasting impact of apartheid crimes and the need for reconciliation. Lastly, in the area of identity layering, Verdoolaege argues that the hearings established various discursively constructed identities and mixed identities within individual testifiers. These changing identities concerned the struggles of Afrikaner and white identities, of double identities (individuals who were both victim and perpetrator), and of political affiliation. One of the main strengths of this chapter is the author’s ability to incorporate seamlessly the texts of the testimonies in support of her larger argument. For Verdoolaege, the result of the hearing process, which was limited, framed, and prodded by the commissioners, was the construction of a unique reconciliation discourse. This discourse was intentionally broad and vague, or “multidimensional and inclusive,” to best appeal to the wider South African population (167). The large umbrella allowed for the idea of reconciliation to mean everything (national reconciliation, religious reconciliation...