Bringing Them Home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Questions and Answers about
'Stolen Children'
Because the Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Children from Their Families deals with unfamiliar issues and
events, it raises many questions for the Australian public. The following
are some of the commonly asked questions and the types of answers that
come out of the Report.
All this happened in the past. What we need to do is focus on the present
and the future - not dwell on the past.
People mistakenly believe that taking children away was something that
only happened in the distant past. Policies of removal were operating throughout
this century, right up until the 1970’s. That means that Aboriginal people
now their late twenties and early thirties were taken from their families.
The past that the report deals with is very much with us today - continuing
to devastate the lives of people who were removed and their families. Those
who were themselves removed, their families and all Indigenous communities
continue to live with the legacy of removal.
The negative consequences of removing children cannot be underestimated.
For the majority of witnesses to the Inquiry, the effects have been multiple
and profoundly disabling.
Nor do the effects stop with the children removed - removal policies
continue to resound through the generations of Indigenous families . The
Inquiry found that a high proportion of stolen children themselves have
children with problems. This may show up in small children in sleep and
eating difficulties, in older children in behavioural problems and in adolescents
in substance abuse, violence, depression, promiscuity, self-harm and suicide.
The tragedy of this inheritance is that a high proportion of these children
are themselves removed, and in turn their own children are removed.
The Inquiry found that Indigenous children are still being removed today.
Indigenous children are six times more likely to be removed for child welfare
reasons and 21 times more likely to be in juvenile detention than non-Indigenous
children.
Australians who are alive today cannot be held responsible for what other
people did in the past. We shouldn’t have a black armband view of history
and be made to feel guilty for what we did not do.
For Australians today to understand why we are implicated in past policies,
we need to draw a distinction between the direct responsibility we bear
for our personal actions, and our shared responsibility as members of a
nation for what has been done in the name of that nation. The former gives
rise to guilt, the latter to shame.
This Report is not about random acts of individuals who are no longer
alive. It is about actions of this nation. Removal was a systematic process
carried out under the laws and policies of Australian Governments, their
officials and churches. It is true that few non-Indigenous Australians
alive today were personally involved in removing Indigenous children. But
as members of the Australian nation we share responsibility for what our
nation has done and does.
The Report, and the people who gave evidence to the Inquiry are not
asking non-Indigenous Australians to feel guilty. They are looking to Australians
of today to listen to, understand and acknowledge a part of Australia’s
history which has remained largely hidden.
This is no different and the same principles must be applied to what
happened to Indigenous families.
The people the Inquiry spoke to are not representative. The Inquiry was
biased and only spoke to people who had bad experiences.
The National Inquiry was widely advertised and publicised throughout Australia
and open to all people to give evidence. The Inquiry visited every state
and territory capital and most regions in Australia. People were invited
to give evidence in whatever form they chose, including oral testimony
in a public hearing or in private, written or taped evidence, or having
someone else speak on their behalf. Evidence was taken from Indigenous
people who were removed and their families; government and church representatives;
former mission staff; foster and adoptive parents; doctors and health professionals;
academics; police and others.
The Inquiry also conducted extensive searches and analysis of historical
documents and records which substantiated its findings about policies of
removal and the lives of Indigenous people separated from their families.
In fact, some people who gave evidence spoke of their positive experiences,
for example of the love and care they received from foster or adoptive
parents or nuns. Those recollections are all reported. However, while the
bonds they formed went some way in helping them overcome the damaging effects
of removal, they wished they had not been taken from their own families.
This was the welfare era - lots of children were taken away - from poor
families or from single mothers, not just Indigenous children. What is
the difference between Indigenous children being taken away and any other
children?
Removal of Indigenous children is a unique case. Many children were taken
from their mothers under duress and against their will. It was a matter
of national policy to separate Indigenous children from their families.
Indigenous children were removed en masse simply because they were Indigenous.
The justification for their removal was unique. The methods of removal
were unique. The consequences of their removal are unique. No other group
of Australians had their children taken away on the massive scale that
is the case for Indigenous Australians.
(a) Different justification
The justification for removing Indigenous children was entirely different
to other types of removal. In the main it was not about fearing for the
child’s safety or their health or about saving the child from neglect.
The Inquiry found that the predominant aim of indigenous child removals
was the absorption or assimilation of the children into the wider, non-Indigenous
community so that their unique cultural values and ethnic identities would
disappear, giving way to western culture. There was a clear and explicit
intention to eliminate Indigenous cultures as distinct entities.
The dominant ethos was that there was nothing of value in Aboriginal
culture - all the value lay in European culture.
It was thought that so called "pure bred" Aboriginal people would naturally
die out, and that "half-castes" particularly those with fairer skin could
be "merged" into the broader community. So the justification for removing
children was that if they lived like non-Indigenous people, with non-Indigenous
people, they would leave their Aboriginality behind.
To this end, Indigenous children once removed were transported by cattle
trucks, buses, trains and planes from one side of the country to the other.
Their families were often not allowed to know where they had been taken
and were prevented from visiting them or corresponding with them.
Non-Indigenous children may have been removed because their families
failed to meet the standards and values of middle class welfare workers.
Aboriginal children were removed because of their Aboriginality.
(b) Different legal regimes and discriminatory practices
Removal of Indigenous children took place under separate ‘protectionist
legislation’ in most states. Under this legislation government officials
acting under the authority of the Chief Protector or the relevant Welfare
Board had absolute power over Indigenous children and could simply order
the removal of an Indigenous child without having to prove to a court that
the child was neglected. These legislative regimes remained in place until
1954 in Western Australia, 1957 in Victoria, 1962 in South Australia, 1964
in the Northern Territory and 1965 in Queensland.
In some cases this legislation permitted the removal of Indigenous children
on the grounds of race alone.
Even after specific protection legislation was repealed, it was far
easier to remove Indigenous children. For example after 1940 Indigenous
children in NSW were removed under general child welfare law where they
were found to be ‘neglected’, ‘destitute’ or ‘uncontrollable’. The evidence
showed that welfare officials and courts applied these terms far more easily
to Aboriginal children than non-Aboriginal children.
(c) The extent of removal
No other group of people have been subjected to removal on this scale.
In the period 1919-1972, between one in three and one in ten Indigenous
children were forcibly removed from their families and communities. (p.
37)
This means that removal was not something that happened to some people,
or someone you had heard about. There is hardly and Indigenous family or
community that has not been directly affected. Families and communities
lived in constant fear for the children who might be taken away - and constant
grief for those already gone.
(d) Effects
Removed children were not allowed to know anything about their origins
or their Indigenous heritage. Their names were changed. They were not allowed
to speak their own languages and were punished for doing so. Many were
never told they were Indigenous and were in fact inculcated with the racist
beliefs of the non-Indigenous people around them.
All children taken from their families are justified in feeling the
gravity of that loss. But the effects of removal on Indigenous children
removed and on Indigenous Australia as a whole are also unique. Indigenous
children did not only lose their families. They lost their languages, their
cultures, their native title rights and their identities. Many were taught
to hate the people to whom they belonged and so taught to hate themselves.
There would not be an Indigenous family in Australia which has not been
touched by removal policies. Removal policies did not just effect individuals
or individual families. The entire fabric of Indigenous communities have
been damaged. Whole communities have lost their confidence in bringing
up children, and have been denied one of their most important and precious
roles.
The fact that removal was a policy of non-Indigenous Australia, directed
at Indigenous Australia means that it has not just damaged individuals,
families and communities. It has damaged the integrity of Indigenous Australia
as a whole, and the nature of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
people.
Many of the children were living in destitute conditions with alcoholic
unstable parents. They were removed for their own good.
This question reflects the very stereotypes which were used to justify
taking Indigenous children away in the first place - that is that their
parents were drunks, itinerant, untrustworthy, immoral and unfit to bring
up children. The Inquiry found that they were removed because they were
Aboriginal. There were no appeal rights.
Lighter-skinned children were sometimes taken while their dark skinned
siblings were left in supposed destitute conditions.
It is true that many Aboriginal families whose children were taken lived
in great poverty. But poverty is not a ground for removal.
The polices and practices of removal and separation thought at the time
to be in the best interests of the children are now widely accepted to
have been misconceived and the cause of lasting damage.
Far from being saved from neglect or destitution, many were imprisoned
in institutions without enough food, enough clothes and without love.
And far from being protected, the evidence shows that Indigenous children
were victims of systematic abuse. Almost a quarter of witnesses to the
Inquiry who were fostered or adopted reported being assaulted there. One
in five reported being sexually abused. One in six of those sent to institutions
reported physical assault and one in ten reported sexual abuse.
And far from being offered a good education and opportunities, most
received just enough of an education to prepare them for menial labour.
Many were sent to white families at a very young age as farm hands or domestic
servants where they were paid little if any wages. Wages were frequently
placed in trust for them ,but many never saw the money they had earned.
Indigenous children who were removed were offered opportunities they would
not otherwise have had. Many got a good education and now hold leadership
positions.
The bulk of evidence detailed damaging and negative effects. But even those
submissions which acknowledged love and care or education said that they
wished they had not had to make the sacrifices that they did.
Australian Bureau of Statistics research shows that people separated
from their families rate no better than those not seperated on social indicators
such as education, employment and income. However those removed were twice
as likely to have been arrested more than once in the last five years,
and they suffer more health problems.
Education was limited. Children were sent out to work as domestics and
labourers from as young as twelve years.
At the time well-intentioned people thought they were doing the right thing
by the children. You cannot judge the past from the perspective of the
present.
The Inquiry was careful to evaluate past actions in the light of values
and legal standards operating at that time - not from today’s point
of view. It found that those actions were contrary to Australia’s own common
law, were breaches of international law, and contradicted many of the values
held by Australians at that time.
The Inquiry found that removal policies and the legal regimes under
which they operated were racially discriminatory and genocidal. The international
community, including Australia has officially condemned these gross violations
of human rights since at least 1945. The United Nations Charter says that
the United Nations shall promote:
universal respect for, and observance of human rights and
fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language
or religion (Article 55)
Australia ratified the Charter in 1945. In fact, Australia was one of the
countries which led the world in forging an international human rights
regime.
Racial discrimination was condemned as a violation of human rights in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
of 1965. Genocide was declared a crime against humanity in a UN resolution
of 1946 and the Genocide Convention was adopted in 1948.
Even then, these instruments simply formalised well established values.
They did not create human rights, or invent their condemnation. They affirmed
them. The Genocide Convention for example expressed a shared international
outrage about genocide, and gave any country the power to prosecute those
who perpetrated genocide.
Australia ratified the Genocide Convention and has been party
to all the key instruments condemning racial discrimination.
Nevertheless Australia continued to remove Indigenous children under
discriminatory regimes, and continued its genocidal practices well after
all of those standards were endorsed by the international community, and
well after they had been wholeheartedly accepted by our own Governments.
Historical documents clearly show that Australian officials knew that
removal policies contravened international human rights obligations.
Even within Australia, many people objected to the practices and pointed
out their immorality. The Report documents this opposition.
What good is compensation going to do? And how can you compensate losing
your family or culture with money?
The Inquiry found that the only appropriate response to victims of gross
human rights violations is one of reparation. Reparation is more than monetary
compensation. As many Indigenous witnesses themselves say, monetary compensation
is at most a minor issue. Acknowledgement, apology, recognition and reassurance
that these policies will never again be endorsed by governments and welfare
systems are the fundamental keys to reconciliation.
Reparation is not a privilege. It is a recognition of wrong done and
of the requirement to recognise and compensate for that wrong.
Other countries have set precedents on this issue of reparation. In
May 1997 the President of the United States apologised to those African
American men who had been abused in syphilis experiments in the United
States. In 1994 the Canadian Royal Commission recommended that reparation
be made to the Inuit people of the High Arctic who were forcibly relocated
in 1953-4. It called on the Canadian Government to acknowledge the wrongs
done and apologise to those relocated, and to reach a settlement on the
amount and form of redress.
In a situation which parallels the issues dealt with in the Inquiry,
Swiss Romany victims of forcible child removal have been awarded a lump
sum amount by way of compensation.
What is genocide? What happened here wasn’t the same as Nazi Germany.
The Genocide Convention of 1948, which Australia signed, defines
genocide as acts that intend to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial
group by killing them or causing them serious bodily or mental harm, or
by inflicting appalling conditions of life on them, or sterilising them,
or by forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
You don’t have to kill or move to exterminate to commit the crime. Any
one of these five acts is genocidal.
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