Submitted by Sharon Burke
Submission type: Public
Date: May 8, 2025
To: The International Development Committee
From: Sharon Burke
Submission to the Inquiry on Women, Peace and Security
Dear Committee Members,
I am submitting written evidence to your inquiry on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) to highlight the failure of the UK Government to uphold WPS principles in a domestic, post-conflict context—specifically, through its implementation of the Truth Recovery Programme in Northern Ireland.
Although the Programme is not funded through Official Development Assistance (ODA), it is directly relevant to your inquiry. Northern Ireland remains a post-conflict society in which women and girls continue to experience the long-term impacts of institutional abuse, coercive control, and gender-based violence. My submission offers a case study in how WPS principles—particularly survivor participation, protection, and accountability—have been sidelined in practice, despite being invoked in policy rhetoric.
I want to emphasise that I have no criticism of the individuals within the Executive Office who have been tasked with implementing the Truth Recovery Programme. They have consistently treated us with courtesy and kindness. My concerns lie with the broader bureaucratic system—one that fails to recognise the need to meaningfully include stakeholders in transitional justice processes and to apply a gender lens throughout. These structural issues, not personal conduct, are at the heart of my submission.
This evidence is grounded in my lived experience as a survivor of Northern Ireland’s coerced adoption system and as a current member of the Consultative Forum of Victims and Survivors. I hope that the Committee will consider this submission as part of its broader examination of the UK’s domestic and international responsibilities under the WPS agenda.
Thank you for your attention and for the opportunity to contribute to this important work.
Sincerely,
Sharon Burke
Submitted by: Sharon Burke
Submission Type: Public
Date: May 8th, 2025
I am a victim of Northern Ireland's coerced adoption system, which led to the wrongful separation of thousands of mothers and children. I am also a member of the Consultative Forum of Victims and Survivors established under the Truth Recovery Programme in Northern Ireland.
The Fifth National Action Plan (NAP) included for the first time a commitment to domestication of the principles of the WPS agenda. This included the extension of the NAP to Northern Ireland. Specifically, the NAP committed to the co-design of a strategy to end violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland and tasked the Northern Ireland Executive as the department responsible for this outcome, reflecting a central theme of the domestic element of the NAP which is to embed the UK’s policy expertise in tackling VAWG in its domestic processes.
This strategy has since been published by the Northern Ireland Executive. It specifically acknowledges that harmful attitudes, systems and structural inequalities that cause (and in turn sustain) the conditions for violence against women and girls. Three strategic outcomes speak to the need to challenge attitudes and beliefs and create a safe atmosphere for women:
These priorities are laudable and mirror commitments in the NAP:
On paper the EVAWG strategy appears aligned with the NAP. However, these objectives are not being implemented. The Truth Recovery Programme, designed to address historic gender-based abuse, has lacked meaningful survivor participation, accountability, or power-sharing. Its design has been top-down and bureaucratic, contradicting WPS principles. Being promised agency only to find we have none is a painful and disturbing echo of past injustices.
No. Forum members (mostly women) were promised a central role in the implementation of the Truth Recovery Report recommendations, but have, in reality, been used to rubber-stamp decisions already made by TEO. Although the Forum’s terms of reference describe a support and challenge role, in reality our challenges are ignored. The Consultative Forum has been excluded from any meaningful legislative and policy development. Our requests to be consulted prior to the drafting of legislation establishing the Public Inquiry and Redress Programme were refused by TEO. The bill was written without our input, and we have not been permitted to review the completed draft. We were given a general outline of the bill’s contents—some of which we found deeply concerning, but no changes were made based on our feedback. We will not be permitted to see this draft bill until after it has been submitted to the Executive Office Committee in the Assembly.
Because we were not treated as stakeholders with rights, we have been placed us at a significant disadvantage. While we may be able to advocate for minor amendments during the legislative process, the opportunity to influence any substantive elements of the bill will have already passed. It is difficult to understand why the Consultative Forum met monthly with TEO for two years if there was never any genuine intention to involve us meaningfully in shaping this justice process.
Had I known from the outset that the Forum would serve only a performative function, I would not have invested so much time, energy, and hope in it. Tokenistic consultation falls far short of the standards set out in the NICS Stakeholder Engagement Guidelines and breaches the UK’s international obligations under UNSCR 1325 and CEDAW General Recommendation 30, both of which affirm the right of women to full, equal, and meaningful participation in transitional justice processes. The disempowerment we are experiencing replicates historical patterns of silencing and marginalization. It is not trauma-informed, reflects persistent gender bias, and fundamentally undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the process.
Because our voices were not listened to, I predict that we will confront the following problems when the bill is made public:
We have been told that TEO has structured the standardized redress programme in a way that excludes the oldest and most vulnerable victims—those who experienced discrimination and forced adoption in the workhouses. A redress scheme that omits these individuals from standardized compensation is not trauma-informed and seriously undermines survivors’ trust in the fairness and integrity of the process. Although we have raised strong objections to this exclusion, TEO has not engaged with us in any meaningful way to explore solutions. This lack of engagement reflects a broader failure to uphold the principles of accountability, inclusion, and justice that should guide any credible redress programme.
We were informed that the Public Inquiry would not examine whether systemic human rights violations had taken place, despite the centrality of human rights concerns in the Truth Recovery Report. TEO told us that the UK was not subject to the ECHR prior to the Human Rights Act of 2018, which ignores the fact that the ECHR came into force in the UK on 3rd September 1953, the UK accepted the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights in 1966, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of George Golder in 1975, establishing that the UK had violated his rights under Article 6 of the convention. I am not a lawyer and so may have an incorrect understanding of the law, but I think that the Consultative Forum deserves a logical explanation for why TEO does not want to include human rights violations in the Public Inquiry’s terms of reference. My concern is that taking any consideration of human rights violations off the table enables the State to ignore whether or not it violated a duty to protect a segment of society that was being systematically discriminated against. I think to do so would be to fail not only those who were discriminated against on the basis of their gender, or their marital status, or the marital status of their mothers but also all citizens of Northern Ireland alive today and those yet to be born. For the State to protect all of its citizens and all people it has power over, it must learn from mistakes it has made in the past. Unless we ask ourselves the hard questions now, we risk harming other vulnerable groups in the future. We have a duty to prevent that.
The Istanbul Protocol states that a public inquiry’s terms of reference must not be so broad—or so narrow—that they prevent the truth from coming to light. We must ask: how was it possible that thousands of women and their children—now adult citizens—were subjected to such profound trauma in a democratic state, one that had signed multiple human rights conventions? How did we—Churches, the State, and society—reconcile our professed commitment to democracy and human rights with our complicity in a system that demonized rape victims (some of them children), punished women—but not men—for extramarital sex, forcibly separated loving mothers from their babies, and reassigned those babies to new families under fabricated identities, as though family bonds and personal identity meant nothing?
These acts feel like clear violations of human rights. Why, then, can the public inquiry not even ask that question? Do we—not only survivors, but all the people of Northern Ireland—have no right to an inquiry that confronts these fundamental questions? How can we promise non-repetition unless we understand what happened?
We have been led to believe that TEO intends to restrict the scope of the forthcoming Public Inquiry to a narrow list of named institutions. Such a limitation would significantly curtail the Inquiry’s ability to acknowledge the full truth of what occurred. The Truth Recovery Report clearly identifies widespread gender-based discrimination against unmarried women, girls, and their children, noting that many victims regard the forced separation of mothers and babies as the most devastating harm suffered.
An inquiry confined to examining the operations of a short list of institutions risks missing the underlying cause of these abuses—state-supported, systemic gender discrimination. In contrast to the Westminster Inquiry into forced adoption, which takes a broader view, the Truth Recovery Inquiry appears poised to focus narrowly on what happened within certain physical locations. If it excludes evidence from women who were coerced into the adoption system but were not resident in those specific buildings, it will fail to recognize the wider system that enabled these separations.
Adoption agencies, the legal system, hospitals, private nursing homes, and other actors were all part of a coordinated government policy. A narrow institutional focus would shift scrutiny away from the state bodies that designed, regulated, and enabled the entire system. As a result, the Inquiry would fall short of exposing the full truth—what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and who was responsible. It would also exclude many whose experiences deserve to be heard and acknowledged, leading to national and international criticism.
This Truth Recovery Programme was presented as a pioneering transitional justice model intended to avoid the failings of past investigations. Yet TEO appears unwilling to embrace the innovative approach it originally promised to implement.
Adoption records are fundamental to an adoptee’s right to know their identity and to reconnect with their family of origin. Yet for decades, these records have been notoriously difficult to access. I was part of a working group comprising victims, survivors, and social workers tasked with developing guidance for professionals handling information requests. While this guidance has resulted in some progress, it was never intended to be the final solution. As recommended by the Truth Recovery Report, it was meant to be followed by comprehensive access- to-information legislation.
To date, however, TEO has taken no steps to advance such legislation and appears unlikely to do so. This inaction sends a clear message: the rights of adoptees to identity and family connection are not being treated as a priority within this process. It represents a continuing denial of justice and recognition for those whose lives were shaped by coerced separation and secrecy.
No. The Truth Recovery Programme lacks effective oversight and independent accountability structures. Key decisions are made by civil servants with little transparency, and safeguards for survivors are only introduced in limited and inconsistent circumstances. There is no indication that a gender lens has been applied to the Truth Recovery implementation process. Crucially, there is no independent, trauma-informed, and gender-sensitive mechanism in place to receive or address complaints—leaving survivors without a meaningful route to raise concerns or seek redress.
The Consultative Forum was given no role in the appointment of victim and survivor representatives to the Independent Panel. Nor were we consulted on the development of any feedback mechanism to ensure that these representatives would be accountable to, and reflective of, the wider survivor community. As a result, there is no formal structure in place to ensure that diverse survivor voices are heard, respected, and meaningfully represented within the Panel’s work.
Neither the Executive Office nor the Independent Panel established an independent complaints mechanism for survivors. Women who sought to raise gender-based concerns with either body were not treated appropriately. Instead of being offered access to a fair and impartial process led by individuals with expertise in gender justice, they were redirected to a standard civil service complaints procedure—one that has consistently proven inadequate, both in its responsiveness and in its sensitivity to gender-based harms.
When I, along with two other women, appealed directly to the Executive Office Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly for oversight and intervention regarding gender-based concerns within the Truth Recovery process, we received a formal yet dismissive response. There was no meaningful engagement with the substance of our complaints. This lack of responsiveness from the body tasked with legislative oversight highlights a deeper systemic failure: the absence throughout government of mechanisms capable of dealing with or even recognizing the difficulties women encounter when trying to speak out about their gender-based concerns. Dismissing women’s complaints in a process set up to address gender injustice without properly examining the evidence or consulting external experts in gender justice is not trauma informed. It contradicts both the spirit and the objectives of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) Strategy. Women must feel safe to speak about the gendered harms that are central to this justice process. Instead, women have been silenced or made to feel that their concerns are disruptive, irrelevant, or unwelcome.
When women are framed as emotional or difficult rather than as credible truth-tellers, and when institutional silence diminishes the structural nature of our experiences, this constitutes a form of gendered invalidation. Protections appear to exist for us only when we play the role of passive witnesses—not when we speak out as political actors. The unspoken assumption is that our voices do not carry equal weight in public discourse.
In a process meant to center gender justice, it should be easier—not harder—for women to express their views safely. The fact that this is not the case highlights the urgent need for the government to adopt procedures capable of effectively implementing EVAWG principles across all areas of public life in Northern Ireland—especially in its response to historical gender-based injustice.
In summary, the Forum is not a safe space for women to speak openly about gendered harm. While victims and survivors are nominally represented on the Independent Panel, that representation has been largely symbolic. No mechanisms exist to ensure that our views are conveyed to the Panel, and no independent complaints process holds either the Panel or TEO accountable to trauma-informed, gender-sensitive standards. As a result, women who raise gender-based concerns feel neither heard nor protected.
The work of the Truth Recovery Design Panel stands out as a rare example of genuine collaboration within the framework of the UK's WPS commitments. It empowered survivors by meaningfully including our voices in the development of the final report, which reflected our lived experiences and perspectives. The government’s full acceptance of that report marked the high point of this process—it gave us hope that our participation mattered, and that justice was within reach.
However, this promising beginning was not sustained. The subsequent Implementation Programme has failed to uphold the principles of meaningful collaboration. Members of the Consultative Forum participated in monthly meetings over a period of two years, only to discover that our input carried little to no weight in shaping the direction of the programme. Despite repeated assurances of agency and partnership, decision-making remained centralized and opaque. This failure undermines the credibility of the UK’s commitment to Women, Peace and Security and demonstrates how WPS principles can be rendered meaningless through bureaucratic control and exclusion.
Tragically, this experience echoes the very injustices we are seeking to address. Women and other victims of historical wrongs must be empowered to contribute fully to the processes designed to acknowledge and remedy those harms. When empowerment is promised but not delivered, it becomes a continuation of the original injustice. Survivors deserve transparency and truth—not only about what was done to them, but also about how justice processes are being conducted in their name.
Women who were once told they were unfit to parent because they were unmarried—and those who were needlessly separated from their mothers and families—deserve to be recognised now as capable, autonomous agents. We should be treated as full participants in determining how justice is pursued, how truth is told, and how acknowledgment and accountability are delivered.
The UK cannot credibly champion the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda internationally while failing to uphold its principles at home. Northern Ireland’s Truth Recovery Programme invited women to participate, only to manage, marginalise, and ultimately diminish their voices. This was a lost opportunity. Women who speak honestly about misogyny and power must be protected, respected, and heard. They deserve dignity in participation, the freedom to speak the truth, and genuine power to shape the processes that affect their lives.
We are at a pivotal moment. If the government is willing to listen, act, and repair, the Truth Recovery process still has the potential to become a model of WPS in action—grounded in truth, justice, and accountability. But this requires a fundamental shift: a recognition that business-as-usual will not suffice, and that gender must be centred throughout. Without a gender lens, women will continue to be disadvantaged and sidelined.
There is an urgent need to embed expert advice, support, and oversight into every stage of implementation—ensuring that transitional justice processes align with the UK’s own WPS strategies and international obligations. Until then, the WPS agenda risks remaining a broken promise—wrapped in the language of bureaucracy but detached from lived realities.
A significant gap remains between current government practice and the growing body of academic research on how best to dismantle patriarchal legacies in post-conflict societies. Collaboration between government officials and academic experts should be a central component of any effective transitional justice programme.
Ensuring full and faithful implementation of existing commitments under the WPS agenda, the National Action Plan (NAP), and the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) Strategy should be the government’s next step. Survivors deserve nothing less.
Transitional justice processes are costly, emotionally demanding, and time intensive. They are only worth pursuing if states are genuinely committed to uncovering the full truth. If governments weigh truth-telling against potential future liabilities, the very purpose of the process is undermined. Establishing an inquiry with the intention of concealing inconvenient truths—especially those that could lead to financial redress—is not only disingenuous; it is worse than doing nothing at all. It squanders public resources, retraumatizes victims, fails to avert future repetition, and ultimately erodes the legitimacy of the state itself.
Perhaps it is simply too difficult for states to fully confront the realities of the past. Elected governments are responsible for serving all citizens and must make difficult decisions about the allocation of public funds. This may limit their willingness—or ability—to design inquiries solely focused on exposing the whole truth. If that is the case, then we must urgently consider alternative models for achieving our transitional justice goals—models that are honest, survivor-centred, and not constrained by political or financial self-interest.