Transitional justice accountability and memorialisation: The Yemeni children affair and the Indian residential schools.

Source: (2014) Israel Law Review. 47(1):3-26.

This article outlines the building blocks of transitionalj ustice in democracies. Grounded in the premises of
Historical Institutionalism, the article analyses the institutions and processes established and their effect on
the outcomes. It offers a comparative analysis of two cases of transitionalj ustice processes in democracies.
These are the investigations of the disappearance of Yemeni children in Israel and the Indian Residential
Schools Settlement in Canada. There are important similarities and difrences between the two cases. In
both settler societies the transgressions were part of aggressive assimilation policies directed at children in
an attempt to wipe out the particular cultural influences of the children’s family and community. In both
cases, children wcrc isolated from the influences of their ethnic group in order to be resocialised into
the dominant culture. The dire consequences of both these were suppressed, denied and forgotten in official
narratives. The different outcomes of these processes are explained by the differences in the intent to
redress, the types of institution and the processes implemented. (author’s abstract)