Purpose of developing the memorial :

To wipe away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings at home and around the world through the shared determination of common humanity and embodiment of collective hopes of all who suffer the effects of institutionalized abuse.

The International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Day Program is a subsidiary of Internations’ Justice Federation’s Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Programs. The memorial service offers survivors of institutional abuse a time to remember the victims whose lives have been claimed by institutional abuse, to unite all survivor groups and individual survivors, families and friends of victims and survivors, and to bring the issue to the international forefront.

The International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Day Program is committed to peaceful and non-violent change. With due consideration to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we the members herein recognize that no individual human majority or minority can be expendable in the cause of theory or policy.

The International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial Day Program recognizes that many lives are still being claimed by institutional abuse. Subsequently, many survivor groups continue to surface. The Unknown Orphan Memorial Program, working in conjunction with the International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial, aspires to unite all groups, as well as the various nations of peoples and cultures.

Institutional abuse is only now beginning to surface worldwide. This abuse continues to wreak havoc among members of society’s most vulnerable. Memories of traumatic experiences continue to haunt many victims long after they have left the institutions. The effects of abuse are strongly reflected in our corrective social programs and crime rates. We lost in the past, and continue to lose many of these victims to homelessness, poverty, violence, crime and suicide.
Today more than ever, criminal and civil claims of institutional and systematic abuse are being launched in Canada and across the world. The issue of institutional abuse is fast becoming an international crisis. Therefore, Internations’ Justice Federation recognizes that rectification of the current redress is urgent.

Internations’ Justice Federation further recognizes that the dialogue of mediation between the relevant parties is failing. Subsequently, Internations’ Justice Federation seeks further to engage mediation in the debate of redress programs affecting the various institutions, government, survivors, victims and the community.

Throughout the debate of institutional child abuse is this question: Do we as a society value children? If we as a society do value children, what are we willing to do to endorse this value? The debate also raises the question of how children, vulnerable groups and cultures were valued in these institutions and society as a whole. The world has known of child abuse for centuries. The hallmark definition of abuse is not punishment; rather, it is the excess of punishment, meaning where injury occurs. It is within this context that society has known that it is wrong to injure another human being, as this is detrimental to the well-being of fellow members of society, thus creating discord in societal civil order.