- Posted on 1 Jul 2022
- 46-minute read
New research from Linda Steele and Kate Swaffer explores the possibility of reparations for human rights violations in residential aged care.
In the first publication from their Dementia Redress Project, Dr Linda Steele (UTS) and Kate Swaffer (University of Wollongong) explore the systemic and structural harms within residential aged care, which constitute human rights violations and call for reparations.
The research draws on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Van Boven Principles to critique the current court-based approaches to compensation and provide an expansive notion of redress as reparations where various stakeholders engage in particular behaviour in order to recognise harms and prevent recurrence.
The suggested reform proposes a framework for reparations featuring compensation, rehabilitation, apologies, and public education. These proposals are accompanied by various potential benefits including a pathway to redress technically legal violence against people with dementia, the opportunity to learn from the past in order to design a more preventative aged care system, crucially providing "sociopolitical agency" to victims, and more.
Find Out More
- Reparations for Harm to People Living with Dementia in Residential Aged Care: Executive Summary and Final Report
- Reparations for Harms Experienced in Residential Aged Care in the Health and Human Rights Journal
- Follow the Dementia Redress Project
- View the recordings of the International Launch and Domestic Launch of the report Reparations for Harm to People Living with Dementia in Residential Aged Care. Alternatively, view the domestic launch in the video player below.
