Wiedergutmachungsinitiative

Wiedergutmachungsinitiative (literal: reparation initiative) in Switzerland, is a so-called Volksinitiative, i.e. a request to suggest federal law by direct democracy, started in April 2014.

In April 2014 the collection of the authenticated signatures of at least 100,000 Swiss citizens started; they have to be collected by 1 October 2015. That popular initiative addresses the fates of forced child labourers in Switzerland, the so-called Verdingkinder, a former term used in Swiss-German language. That practice, another then claimed 'integration project' related to the so-called 'misplaced persons', affected tens of thousands of juveniles which were placed as cheap labourers at Swiss farms, among them also Fahrende or Jenisch juveniles affected by the then Swiss foundation Kinder der Landstrasse – but not their families.

The initiative, probably a unique fact in the Swiss media culture, is actively supported by the Beobachter that also participated to reveal the backgrounds of the fates of Verdingkinder, and the Kinder der Landstrasse foundation. The popular initiative – set up by Guido Fluri and other prominent Swiss citizens, among them the Swiss writer Lukas Hartmann – is supported among others also by the parent organization of the Swiss churches and the association of the Swiss teachers.

The initiative, incidentally started by an inter-political committee as there were missing adequate measurements by the Swiss governmental authorities, claims:

Verdingkinder (literally: "contract children" or "indentured child labourers") were children who were in Switzerland taken from their parents, often due to poverty or moral reasons – usually among others mothers being unmarried, very poor citizens, of Gypsy–Yeniche (Swiss German also Fahrende) origin – and sent to live with new families, often poor farmers who needed cheap labour. Many of these children, now adults, have now come forward to say that they were severely mistreated by their new families, suffering neglect, beatings and other physical and psychological abuse. There were even auctions where children were handed over to the farmer asking least money from the authorities, thus securing cheap labour for his farm and relieving the authority from the financial burden of looking after the children. In the 1930s, p.e. in the Canton of Bern about 20% of all agricultural labourers were children below the age of 15. Swiss municipality guardianship authorities acted so, commonly tolerated by federal authorities, to the 1960s, not all of them of course, but usually communities affected of low taxes in some Swiss cantons. The Swiss historian Marco Leuenberger investigated, that in 1930 there were some 35,000 indentured children, and between 1920 and 1970 more than 100,000 are believed to have been placed with families or homes. 10,000 Verdingkinder, women and men in Switzerland, are still alive in the mid-2010s.

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Wikipedia