Scotland: Historic Abuse in Care and Human Rights

Abstract

Calls for justice by victims/survivors have driven the Scottish response to the issue of abuse in care. This chapter highlights two particular issues in these developments: the focus on residential and institutional care to the detriment of concerns about abuse in foster care; and the development of an explicit framework for a human rights approach to the issue. The legislation under which children in Scotland have been placed in residential and foster care has evolved over time. For a long period children were placed in care under the Poor Law and associated legislation (Scottish Home Department, 1946). This was followed by the Children Act 1948, which was the primary legislation for the next 20 years. The Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 radically changed child care legislation and established the distinctive children’s hearings systern (McDiarmid, 2005), and the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 brought in new terminology describing children in care as being ‘looked after and accommodated’. This legislation also made provision for the rights of children, particularly the participation of children in decisions which affected them (Norrie, 2004).