A special UN Human Rights Committee hearing in Geneva will be told today that the Holy See and the Irish Republic failed to protect children from abuse under the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Mr Colm O'Gorman, director of the One In Four abuse victims' organisation, will highlight forced child labour in Ireland's industrial schools and the sexual exploitation of Irish children.
He will also say that the response of Catholic dioceses (under the direct governance of the Holy See) has been one that sought at all costs to protect the institution rather than honour its commitments under the UN's Declaration and Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See's permanent representative at the UN in Geneva is the newly appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev Diarmuid Martin. He is in Geneva today.
Mr O'Gorman's invitation to today's hearing arose from an interview he did with the BBC Radio 4 programme Taking A Stand, broadcast earlier this year.
He will argue that work, not education, was the lot of most children in Ireland's industrial schools and that the effects of child sexual abuse can leave individuals enslaved to their traumatic experience long after childhood. As such they were entitled to have their rights vindicated under Article 39 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
He will say that the Irish experience was shaped largely by two States Parties to the UN Convention [any state or party which has agreed to adhere to it\] - namely the Republic of Ireland and the Holy See. He will point out that from the foundation of the Irish State the Catholic Church had a primary role in providing social care, education, the formation of legislation and social policy, and was in reality as powerful politically as the Government.
He is expected to argue that human rights conventions should not just protect against future abuses but also respond to past failures and abuses. He will contend that the rights of abused children, now adults, are ignored and that any States Parties to the Convention had an obligation to vindicate abused children.
Article 39 says: "States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child."