The Therapeutic Institutional Abuse 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 history of Canada is not just a history of glorious triumphs over an immense and frequently hostile wilderness. It is also the story of mistakes, actions and failures to act by individuals and by institutions, often with the noblest of intentions. Such has been the case with organizations and the care practices of the criminal justice system, the foster care system, the child protection services, the residential institutions for native and other children, the youth detention centres, and religious and government-sponsored orphanages. Furthermore, records indicating exactly what actions, inaction, omissions and commissions really occurred must be obtained so those mistakes can be atoned for and corrected.

In Canada, over the last decade, over 5,210 victims filed claims of physical and sexual abuse, cultural eradication, sterilizations, and genocide, involving over 72 residential institutions. Many children also died due to the severe negligence and physical abuse they received at the hands of their caregivers.

The Therapeutic Institutional Abuse Program recognizes that many lives are still being claimed by institutional abuse. Subsequently, many survivor groups continue to surface. The Therapeutic Institutional Abuse Program, working in conjunction with the International Institutional Child Abuse Memorial, aspires to unite all groups, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal.

Institutional abuse is only now beginning to surface in Canada and other countries around the world. This abuse continues to wreak havoc among members of society. 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, 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 pending across the world. The issue of institutional abuse is fast becoming an international crisis. Therefore, Internations’ Justice Federation recognizes that reproach 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, governments, survivors, victims and the community.