Canada – For more than 100 years,
Canada retained a practice of removing indigenous Canadian children from their families and placing them in church-run
Indian residential schools (IRS). This process was part of an effort to homogenize Canadian society, and included the prohibition of native language and cultural practices. In 1991, the Canadian government established the
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), charged with exploring the relationship between aboriginal peoples, the government, and society.
As a result of the commission’s recommendations, the government symbolically issued an apology in a “Statement of Reconciliation,” admitting that the schools were designed on racist models of assimilation. Pope Benedict XVI also issued an apology on behalf of church members who were involved in the practice.
[13] In addition, the government provided a $350 million fund to help those affected by the schools.
[14] In 2006, the federal government signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, agreeing to provide reparations to the survivors of this program. The Settlement totals approximately $2 billion, and includes financial compensation, a truth commission, and support services.
[15]
Chile – In 1990,
Chile’s newly elected president
Patricio Aylwin created the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the human rights abuses of General
Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorial regime. The commission investigated disappearances, political executions, and torture, publishing the
Rettig Report with its findings in 1991. Afterwards, its work was continued by the National Corporation for Reparations and Reconciliation. These programs recommended reparations for the victims, including: monthly pensions, educational benefits for the children of the disappeared, exemption from military service, and priority access to health services.
However, these initiatives have also been criticized on a variety of grounds, such as their refusal to identify the perpetrators of violence and their failure to recognize a comprehensive range of victims to whom reparations are due.
Morocco – In
Morocco, the period between the 1960s and 1990s is often referred to as the “years of lead,” referring to the massive human rights violations that occurred in the government’s campaign of political oppression, including executions, torture, and the annihilation of other civil liberties. Shortly after he ascended the throne in 1999,
King Mohammed VI created the Independent Arbitration Commission (IAC) to compensate the victims of forced disappearances and arbitrary detention. The IAC decided more than 5,000 cases and awarded a total of US$100 million, but victims and their families complained of lack of transparency in the tribunal’s procedures and demanded truth seeking measures in addition to financial compensation.
These pressures were instrumental in leading to the 2004 creation of the Arab world’s first official truth-seeking initiative, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission. The IER issued a ground-breaking reparations policy that upheld notions of gender equity and resulted in roughly $85 million USD in financial compensation paid to almost 10,000 individuals, as well as recommendations on other measures such as the provision of health care and restoration of civil rights. The IER’s recommendations also led to a groundbreaking collective reparations program that combined symbolic recognition of human rights violations with a development component in eleven regions that had suffered from collective punishment.
[16] As of May 2010, implementation of the collective reparations program was ongoing.
Other reparations programs have been proposed and/or implemented in: Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, El Salvador, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Malawi, Liberia, South Africa, Kenya, the United States, and others.
[17][18]