By Alexandra Sandacz
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LONDON, United Kingdom – Frances Andrade, a respected violinist and mother of four, is believed to have committed suicide days after an aggressive cross-examination in the trial of her former music teacher Michael Brewer.

On Friday, Brewer, an ex choir teacher, was convicted of carrying out sexual abuse in his office at Chetham’s School of Music between 1978 and 1982. However, simultaneously, the jury cleared Brewer of rape and one charge of indecently assaulting the victim as a child in his home.

During the trial, Brewer’s barrister Kate Blackwell QC, accused Andrade, who did not want to bring the case, of being a liar and a fantasist.

According to her husband, Andrade felt traumatized after being accused of lying in court. Her death, which occurred only days after her cross-examination, prompted a debate on how the court handled Brewer’s case and why the police advised Andrade not to receive therapy until after the trial.

Andrade’s husband explained, “She become really withdrawn. She went to the doctor as she was having trouble sleeping. He suggested she speak to someone and said he could refer her – but she said she’d been told not to by the police. I don’t know if it was Manchester or Surrey [police] but they said psychiatric help might affect her evidence – she might change her mind or it might confuse her. I hope this is something that will be looked at during the inquest.”

Home Secretary, Theresa May, said, “This was a terrible case when you look at the details of this and we all have sympathy with the family and what they have gone through. Obviously this whole question of how the police deal with rape cases is one that is being looked at and we have been trying to improve the police handling of this under both governments, over a number of years.”

She continued, “We all recognize that one of the issues here is the difficulty victims feel in coming forward and sadly when we see incidents such as has happened in this case, I fear others may be put off from coming forward rather than encouraged from coming forward.”

Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, stated, “The Bar Council is ready and willing to cooperate fully with the Home Secretary in any closer inspection of how the justice system operates following an allegation of sexual assault. We should ensure that every reasonable measure is taken to protect vulnerable witnesses and to encourage the victims of abuse to come forward.”

For further information, please see:

BBC — Theresa May: Chethams abuse case death ‘may deter victims’ – 11 February 2013

DailyMail — Home secretary announces probe into police handling of the violinist who killed herself after being grilled in choirmaster abuse case – 11 February 2013

The Telegraph — Death of Frances Andrade Will Put Other Victims Off Coming Forward, says Home Secretary – 11 February 2013

The Guardian — Frances Andrade Killed Herself After Being Accused of Lying, says Husband – 10 February 2013

By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

SOCHI, Russia – Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report, “Race To The Bottom,” last week detailing the exploitation of migrant workers who built sites and infrastructure, including the Central Olympic Stadium, the Main Olympic Village, and the Main Media Center, for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

HRW learned that employers cheated migrant workers out of wages, required 12-hour shifts with few days off, and confiscated passports and work permits, which forced migrant workers to stay in their current job.  The watchdog organization stressed a need for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Russian authorities, including the State Corporation OlympStroi, to rigorously monitor worker’s rights in the coming year before the 2014 Olympic Games.

2014 will be Russia’s first Winter Olympics and its first Olympics since the Summer Games of 1980.  As a pet project on which President Vladimir Putin has staked his reputation, Russian officials have promised the games next year will be the most expensive ever, with a price tag exceeding $50 billion (China spent $42 billion on the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing).  Putin’s personal spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov defended the project as an opportunity to develop the Sochi region, while simultaneously comparing the magnitude of the project to the “reconstruction of cities and towns after World War II.”

In Russia’s strive for greatness, the region of the Black Sea coast town of Sochi, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, is being transformed, necessitating tens of thousands of construction workers, including over 16,000 migrant workers from outside of Russia.  HRW spoke to 66 workers, nearly all of whom had low-wage, low-skill jobs.  They came from countries such as Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine, and earned as little as 55 to 80 rubles (US$1.80 to $2.60) an hour.

Some of the workers interviewed indicated that they did not receive full wages, were never paid at all, or had their wages kept from them as a tactic to keep them on a project.  Working 12-hour day, 7-days a week, they did not receive the benefits of a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, or a day off per week, which are all mandated under Russian law.  Some employers convinced workers to continue to labor for months with the promise that pay would come soon.

For some workers, the lack of salary is particularly trying because in many instances, the migrant workers came to Russia in order to support their families back home as the sole breadwinners.  When they are paid, they send the majority of their earnings home.

Although accommodations and meals were generally provided, housing was overcrowded (e.g., one employer provided a single-family house as living quarters for 200 migrant laborers) and meals were insufficient to sustain people laboring for 12 hours a day.

In several instances, migrant workers who complained of the ill treatment, exploitation, or unfair wages were denounced to the authorities and deported.  It was quickly demonstrated that foreign workers, with limited knowledge of the language, issues with residency, and a fear of legal repercussions proved particularly vulnerable.

The International Olympics Committee (IOC) claimed in a statement that it had raised the issue of worker exploitation.  However, the IOC has by and large praised Russian authorities’ preparation for the Olympic Games.  The IOC has furthermore failed to address numerous other human rights allegations in Russia, such as restrictions on public assemblies, new internet restrictions and a re-criminalization of libel.

Furthermore, while OlympStroi, the state company overseeing official construction, had conducted some 1,300 inspections into exploitation allegations, it found only a small number of violations.

“As the IOC meets in Sochi this week to celebrate the one-year countdown to the 2014 Winter Games, it has a chance to make a strong statement about respect for human dignity by publicly calling on the Russian authorities to put an end to worker exploitation,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The Olympic Games are about excellence and inspiration. The world should not cheer Winter Games in Russia that are built on a foundation of exploitation and abuse.”

Unfortunately, this is not the first story of abuses in the Stroi region.  Last fall, thousands of residents were forced to move to make way for the present construction.  While most received some form of compensation, at least dozens of homeowners were forcefully relocated and never compensated at all.  Environmentalists have also warned of illegal dumping, destruction of forests and wildlife, and similar violations.

Even athletes currently on site for trial events have been surprised by large numbers of heavily armed riot police, frequent checkpoints, and constant requests to show ID to not only access athletic venues but also to exit, as well as to simply enter their living quarters.

Buchanan further commented: “Like the athletes competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics, Russia has big hopes and dreams for its performance in Sochi as the host.  But exploiting workers is a victory for no one, and Russia urgently needs to change course.”

For further information, please see:

HRW – Russia’s Anti-Olympic Spirit – 8 February 2013

HRW – Russia: Migrant Olympic Workers Cheated, Exploited – 6 February 2013

Huffington Post – Migrant Workers at Russia Olympic Sites Face Abuses, Human Right Watch Says – 6 February 2013

New York Times – Putin’s Vision of Olympic Glory Meets a More Earthbound Reality in Sochi – 6 February 2013

RFE/RL – HRW Criticizes Exploitation at Russian Olympic Construction Sites – 6 February 2013

By Alexandra Sandacz
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LONDON, United Kingdom – On Wednesday, a report, which examined conditions at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire over a 50-month period between 2005 and 2009, exposed horrific inhumane treatment of patients. The subpar care led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths.

The report cited various examples of the specific conditions. Some patients were left unbathed and lying in their own urine and excrement. Other patients drank water from vases because of thirst. Overworked staff members denied patients their medication, pain relief, and food. Furthermore, many patients died from contracting infections, and patients were sent home to die after a misdiagnosis of disease.

Approximately between 400 and 1,200 more deaths occurred than expected between 2005 and 2008.

Robert Francis, the government appointed lawyer, stated, “This is the story of the appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people. They were failed by a system which ignored the warning signs and put corporate interests and cost control ahead of patients and their safety.”

He continued, “There was a lack of care, compassion, humanity and leadership. The most basic standards of care were not observed, and fundamental rights to dignity were not respected.”

One widow stepped forward because she believed it was the medical and care management’s faults that led to her husband’s death. She stated, “Whether it’s a hospital or factory, if you have bad management the people below them are not going to care.”

After the Prime Minister questioned why no one was fired after the original release of the Hospital’s indignity, the General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) began to take action against the personnel.

At least four doctors and 10 nurses face public professional misconduct hearings over their constant failure to provide adequate health care.

For example, Bonka Kostova, a healthcare assistant at Stafford Hospital, faces charges because she allegedly forced a patient into his wheelchair when he stood up, pushed him into a bathroom and dragged him out. When other nurses intervened, she began to scream, “I hate you” and “You are no longer a human being but an animal.”

Katherine Murphy, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said the report was a “watershed moment” for health service. She states, “It is clear from the report that there is a lot of blame to go around for what happened in Stafford. Unfortunately too many people have escaped genuine accountability.”

For further information, please see:

The Independent – Stafford Hospital Carer Accused of Dragging 73-Year-Old by Collar – 8 February 2013

Mirror – ‘Heartless Bunglers Allow My Husband to Die Alone’: Widow Blasts Crisis Hospital for Appalling Mistakes – 7 February 2013

BBC – Stafford Hospital: Hiding Mistakes ‘Should Be Criminal Offense’ – 6 February 2013

The New York Times – English Hospital Report Cites ‘Appalling’ Suffering – 6 February 2013

By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

DUBLIN, Ireland – Describing the severe conditions in the Magdalene laundries, one survivor revealed: “In our heads, all we could think of is we are going to die here. That was an awful thing to carry.”  A report released Tuesday by Ireland’s Department of Justice and Equality found “significant” State involvement in their suffering.

The Magdalene laundries constitute an infamous chapter in Irish history in which between 1922 and 1996 more than 10,000 women, aged 9 to 89, were institutionalized in ten workhouses run by several Catholic congregations under conditions described as “cold with a rigid and uncompromising regime of physically demanding work and prayer and many instances of verbal censure, scoldings and humiliating put-downs.”  The women and girls worked to exhaustion each day behind locked doors, without wages, from 8:30am to 7pm in strict silence.  Some worked to death.

Following the report’s publication, survivor Mary Smyth described her experience: “You got up at six in the morning and went to the laundry, then ate at two o’clock.  The food was just horrific – dripping every day.  Six o’clock was the rosary, then back to bed we went.  Nobody was allowed to talk whatsoever. It was worse than any prison.”

The Irish government commissioned an inter-departmental committee, chaired by Senator McAleese, to investigate state involvement with the Magdalene laundries after the UN Committee Against Torture called on the government to do so in 2011.

The report also found from interviewing survivors that certain allegations such as severe physical and sexual abuse had been exaggerated, except in isolated cases.  More often, the inquiry, led by Senator Martin McAleese, found that the women had been subjected to “verbal abuse,” “belittling comments” and “mental cruelty.”

One woman told the inquiry: “The nuns were very nasty.  They’d say, ‘Your father is a drunkard’ in front of everyone.  It would degrade me.”  Another said: “They were very, very cruel verbally – ‘Your mother doesn’t want you, why do you think you`re here.’”

Girls from the laundries gained a reputation as “troubled” or being what were then called “fallen women.”  Despite a rumored reputation for such, the report found no evidence that unmarried girls had babies in the laundries or that many of the women were prostitutes.

However, the report did find that half the women shut away in the laundries to do “harsh and physically demanding work” were girls under the age of 23, and that 40%, or more than 4,000 women, spent more than a year incarcerated.  15% of women were kept in the laundries for more than 5 years, although the average term was 7 months.  Some were incarcerated more than once.  Of the deaths on record, the youngest victim was 15, while the oldest was 95.

Mary Lou McDonald, deputy leader of the Sinn Féin party, described the findings of the report as “a very Irish form of slavery.”

The statistics were compiled from only eight of the ten laundry workhouses because two, both operated by the Sisters of Mercy in Dun Laoghaire and Galway, were missing a substantial portion of their records.  The inquiry committee also stressed that it had interviewed just a small sample of survivors who “cannot be considered representative”, and that the interview data was “biased towards more modern years.”

While according to the report nearly a fifth (19%) of the women entered the laundries voluntarily and one in ten (10%) were sent by their families, more than a quarter (26%) were institutionalized by the state.  Petty offences including failure to pay a train ticket, school truancy, and vagrancy were sufficient to land a girl in the Magdalene laundries.  Furthermore, if a girl was recalled to the laundries or ran away, she could be arrested without a warrant by the police.

Previous Irish governments had claimed that the Magdalene Laundries were run purely privately, an assertion flatly contradicted by the findings of the report.  It also appears that the government either directly or indirectly funded the laundries by providing a significant portion of their business.

Fergus Finlay of the Barnardos children’s charity asserted that the report catalogues “how the state turned a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which women lived, while supporting the religious orders who enslaved them in financial and other ways. These women were treated like slaves.”

The Religious Sisters of Charity, one of the orders that operated the laundries applauded the report, while simultaneously apologizing for and defending its actions, saying: “We apologi[z]e unreservedly to any woman who experienced hurt while in our care. In good faith we provided refuge for women.”

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, while expressing sympathy for survivors and the families of those who died, stopped short of issuing a formal government apology.  Instead, he stated: “To those residents who went through the Magdalene Laundries in a variety of ways, 26 percent of the time from state involvement, I am sorry for those people that they lived in that kind of environment.”

Survivor advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes rejected Kenny’s statement and demanded a full, frank admission of responsibility from the government and religious orders involved, saying that the prime minister’s statement fell “far short of the full and sincere apology deserved by the women who were incarcerated against their will in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries”.

There have also been calls for compensation for the survivors, to which the government has not responded, desiring to wait until after the lower house of Ireland’s parliament debates the report in two weeks.  However, Irish president Michael D. Higgins has expressed his support for compensation and a state apology, saying Thursday, “[W]e need a public response, an institutional response and a State response and the State no doubt will make its own decisions and take its own actions.”

Of the women and girls of the Magdalene laundries, report author Senator McAleese wrote: “None of us can begin to imagine the confusion and fear experienced by these young girls, in many cases little more than children, not knowing why they were there, feeling abandoned, wondering whether they had done something wrong and not knowing when, if ever, they would get out to and see their families again.”

For further information, please see:

Irish Times – President ‘Moved by Their Story’ – 7 February 2013

Irish Times – ‘All We Could Think of is We are Going to Die Here. That was an Awful Thing to Carry’ – 6 February 2013

Irish Times – Kenny Under Fire for Failure to Issue Full Apology to Magdalene Women – 6 February 2013

Al Jazeera – Irish PM Says ‘Sorry’ for Laundries Abuse – 5 February 2013

BBC News – Irish PM: Magdalene Laundries Product of Harsh Ireland – 5 February 2013

The Independent – Ireland Issues Apology to the ‘Fallen Women’ it Sent to Catholic Workhouses – 5 February 2013

Irish Times – State had ‘Significant’ Role in Magdalene Laundry Referrals – 5 February 2013

Department of Justice and Equality – Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries – 5 February 2013

By Alexandra Sandacz
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe 

LONDON, United Kingdom – European police arrested 103 people who are suspected of participating in a “major people-smuggling criminal network.” The network smuggled people primarily from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey.

Europol, a joint law enforcement agency in the Union, conducted searches in 117 houses that involved more than 1,200 police officers. Laptops, mobile phones, cash, bank statements, semi-automatic weapons and ammunition were just some of the memorabilia seized.

The exposed smuggling emphasized a problem of migrants who are desperate to escape poverty and conflict in their home countries. As a result, illegal immigrants pay criminal gangs £1,500 to smuggle them out of Britain via Turkey and the Balkans.

Europol reported that the smuggled individuals were transported in “inhuman” conditions. Moreover, “the migrants were often smuggled in inhuman and dangerous conditions, such as in very small hidden compartments in the floor of buses or trucks, in freight trains or on boats.”

The smuggle network originally was exposed when journalist, Paul Kenyon, claimed to be a Moldovan illegal immigrant named “Chris”, and recorded a meeting with a man he accused of being a fixer for the group. The man explained that the gang would smuggle groups of illegal immigrants across the Channel in the back of a lorry.

According to the International Police Organization, “People-smuggling syndicates are drawn by the huge profits that can be made, while benefiting from weak legislation and the relatively low risk of detection, prosecution and arrest.” The International Organization for Migration (I.O.M.) determined that smuggling individuals could garner profits from $3 to $10 billion a year.

The I.O.M. clarifies that smuggling indicates individuals obtaining entry into a state of which the individual is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident, for financial or material gain.” Conversely, “Trafficking, on the other hand, occurs for the purpose of exploitation, often involving forced labor and prostitution.”

Although the illegal immigrants willingly traveled in search of a better life, people-smuggling is, nevertheless, not a victimless crime. The I.O.M. said, “Numerous other crimes are oftentimes linked to people smuggling – human trafficking, identity fraud, corruption and money laundering – creating shadow governance systems that undercut the rule of law.”

For further information, please see:

The New York Times – Europeans Dismantle People-Smuggling Ring – 31 January 2013

BBC – Europe Police ‘Smash People-Smuggling Ring’ – 30 January 2013

The Independent – Criminal Ganges Are Smuggling Immigrants Out of the UK – 21 January 2013

DailyMail – Illegal Immigrants Pay £1,500 to Be Smuggled OUT of Britain: Fears Gangs Are Helping Foreign Criminals Flee the Country – 20 January 2013