Vulnerability, resilience and the responsive state in transitional societies: Seriously injured victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland

This chapter focuses on the aspects of vulnerability, resilience and the response of the state to seriously injured victims in Northern Ireland, and teases out these themes in the practice of a transitional society. Victims are often portrayed as vulnerable, helpless and passive, and can themselves play into such roles to morally motivate society to redress the harm they have suffered. The vulnerability of certain victims will curtail, or at least create further barriers, their ability to claim their rights, engage in transitional justice or garner sufficient public attention to advance their redress agenda. A greater understanding of vulnerability and resilience can assist in fine-tuning how transitional justice mechanisms enable access, engage, and shape redress and justice for victims, ex-combatants and other interested actors. Certain victims in transitional justice are often generically acceptable as vulnerable, such as women, children, the elderly and displaced persons, given that they are susceptible and exposed to certain forms of violence.