Can science protect human rights? Yes, and the MUSEUniversity Museum of Anthropological, Medical and Forensic Sciences for Human Rights, was born precisely for this reason. You should know that MUSA was created to collect the legacy of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology of the University of Milan (also known as LABANOPH), and it is the only museum of this kind in Europe: here you can observe for free how forensic medicine and other scientific disciplines (anthropology, botany, forensic criminology, entomology) collaborate not only to restore an identity to victims of violent eventsbut also for intercept signs of violence on the most defenseless, protecting their rights.
Among the founders of this project (UNIMI, Sacchi Samaja Foundation, Milanese University College Foundation) there is also the NGO Terre des Hommeswhich has been protecting children around the world from all forms of violence or abuse for 60 years.
How MUSA is made and how it helps us read the signs of violence on the body
At MUSA we can observe how the combination of anthropology, medicine, forensic science and many other scientific disciplines help us read the signs on the body, highlighting mistreatment, violence or other causes of deathand establishing the objective truth about what really happened. Under the lens of science, for example, bruises on a body or marks left on bones reveal that kind of violence the victim suffered (forensic medicine), residues of natural or synthetic substances and fibers instead help to reconstruct the dynamics of the murder (forensic sciences and botany). And this is how the truth about what happened is gradually reconstructed.
In the opening section there is numerous bone evidence demonstrating various types of mistreatment and the objects used. We are talking about bones in particular because to solve a crime the forensic doctor is not always faced with a body: sometimes in fact only the skeletonand only by observing this single precious finding can one trace the sex, age, habits and origins of the victim, but also the illnesses or violence and discrimination suffered.
The study, however, is amplified in the second part of the museum, that historicalwith more than 10 thousand bone finds (coming from the crypt of the Ca’ Granda in Milan) of people who lived in Milan from Roman times to the nineteenth century. By studying the human remains of those who preceded us, not only are diseases and their courses discovered, but it is also possible to reconstruct them who we were in ancient times, to better understand the trajectory of social phenomena such as violence and discrimination.
After the historical section, there is that forensics and criminalisticswith the reconstruction of some crime scenes with concrete evidence which attest to how cooperation between different disciplines helps the medical examiner to understand what happened.
But that’s the last section humanitarianthe one that strikes the spectators most deeply: the entire room recounts testimonies of violence and mistreatment, and how an indelible mark remains on the body and psyche. But this section goes “beyond the walls”: the final part of the museum, in fact, is hidden behind a heavy black velvet curtain.
The section behind the tent is entirely dedicated to the Melilli massacre, known to most as the shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily which occurred on 18 April 2015the largest shipwreck ever to occur in the Mediterranean. Not everyone knows that it is LABANOF that has been working for years to give a name to the still unrecognized victims, in the hope of being able to give them back their identity and give their families a body on which they can grieve.
In this room everything is dark, to shed light there is only a screen that projects an (almost entirely silent) film on the tragic event. Behind another curtain, there is another very touching reconstruction, which preserves part of the legacy left by the victims.
Training young people’s eyes to recognize the signs of violence: schools go to MUSA
Terre des Hommes, however, did not stop there, and to make younger people discover how the study of the body can be useful for the protection of human rights, it thought of a educational project for lower and upper secondary school students.
The path, financed by AICS (Italian Agency for Development Cooperation) begins in the classroom, with interactive educational workshops to prepare children for the guided tour of the museum. In these laboratories you learn how science is essential to understand social and cultural phenomena, but above all to protect human rights. Terre des Hommes has also thought of one escape rooms in which students, equipped with tablets, will receive clues, questions and puzzles to understand firsthand how science helps protect human rights.
For classes that wish it, the project also provides the possibility of visit the LABANOF from which the museum was born to understand the structure of human bones first hand, learn how to reconstruct a skeleton model and read the signs of abuse, violence and illness on this fragile but equally resistant part of the body.
The project also includes an immersive performance to teach children how the signs of the body and bones are fundamental for identifying and preventing human rights violations.
