The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 8383Neža KogovšekTHE ERASURE AS A VIOLATION OF LEGALLYPROTECTED HUMAN RIGHTS1. IntroductionAlthough legal arrangements in Slovenia ensure high-level protection ofhuman rights, judging by public debates, human rights do not rank high in the hierarchyof social values, and they are frequently undervalued. Vulnerable socialgroups, which are most susceptible to the violation of their rights, are too often allegedto enjoy an excess of rights, but in reality the situation is usually exactly theopposite, with these groups being unable to exercise even the rights that are accessibleto the general population. The accounts of the erased people in Sloveniaand our study show that both the erasure and its consequences should be cha -racterized as human rights violation. This is the conclusion that proceeds from thepresent chapter, which presents the stories of the erased people and discussesthem from the perspective of the international law regulating human rights. Thelatter are protected by various conventions to which Slovenia is a signatory. Theerased people’s stories testify that the erasure affected all areas of their lives, andbrutally intruded into their rights – civil, political, social and economic.Human rights – or the absence of respect for human rights – are seldomthe topic of discussion related to the erasure. This is because the testimoniesof people affected by erasure and the concrete situations in which they foundthemselves were not accorded close attention. Instead, they were subject togene ralizations and treated as a homogeneous group, so although in reality theymake a very heterogeneous group, their individual situations were not obviouswithin the broader context of the problem. Only a detailed look into concrete individualsituations and their assessment against the legal standards set forthin binding international documents can reveal the extent to which their human