Required during meiosis for separation of sister chromatids and homologous chromosomes. Proteolytic cleavage of REC8 on chromosome arms by separin during anaphase I allows for homologous chromosome separation in meiosis I and cleavage of REC8 on centromeres during anaphase II allows for sister chromatid separation in meiosis II (By similarity). {ECO:0000250|UniProtKB:Q8C5S7}.