Child Scoop

By: Paige MacRae and Hilary Stafford

DISCUSSION!

Reasoning behind removal is contested

What do you think some of the government and churches motives were for taking the children?

Motives

- child protection for neglected, abused or abandoned mixed descent children

- beliefs that the Aboriginals would "die out," and a fear of miscegenation by full-blooded Aboriginal people (inevitable extinction)

Why did this occur?

Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 enabled the Aborigines' Protection Board to remove Aboriginal children from their parents without having to establish that they were in anyway neglected or mistreated.

Walter Baldwin Spencer

Reported that many mixed descent children born during the construction of The Ghan railway were abandoned at early ages with no-one to provide for them. This incident and others spurred the action to provide for and protect such children.

Aboriginal Protection Act 1869

-central board for the protection of Aborigines

- act gave colony of Victoria power over Aboriginals and 'half-caste' persons, including forcible removal of children, especially girls

- In 1950 there were similar policies in other states and territories of Australia.

-sundry guardianship powers by Aboriginal protectors over Aborigines up to the age of 16 or 21.

-Policemen and Aboriginal protection officers were given the power to locate and transfer babies and children from their mothers, families or communities into Institutions.

Institutions

Bringing Them Home Report

"At least 100,000 children were removed from their parents, between one and three and one and ten."

"Nationally we can conclude with confidence that between one and three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970. In certain regions and in certain periods the figure was doubtedly much greater than one in ten. In that time not one family has escaped the effects of forcible removal (confirmed by representatives of the Queensland and WA Governments in evidence to the Inquiry). Most families have been affected, in one or more generations, by the forcible removal of one or more children."

Suggests that approximately 20,000 to 25,000 children were removed between 1910 and 1970 based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics report of 1994.

The Bringing Them Home Report also states that some families were required to sign legal documents to relinquish care to the state.

In a large number of cases children were brutally and focibly removed from their parents, even from the hospital shortly after birth.

In Western Australia the Aborigines Act of 1905 removed the legal guardianship of Aboriginal parents and made all children legal wards of the state, so no permission was required.

There were also many cases of official misrepresentation and deception, good parents being shown as bad, or parents being told that children had died.

"I was at the post office with my Mum and Auntie [and cousin]. They put us in the police ute and said they were taking us to Broome. They put the mums in there as well. But when we'd gone [about ten miles (16 km)] they stopped, and threw the mothers out of the car. We jumped on our mothers' backs, crying, trying not to be left behind. But the policemen pulled us off and threw us back in the car. They pushed the mothers away and drove off, while our mothers were chasing the car, running and crying after us. We were screaming in the back of that car. When we got to Broome they put me and my cousin in the Broome lock-up. We were only ten years old. We were in the lock-up for two days waiting for the boat to Perth."

- Children were either placed in Institutions or fostered out.

- punished if caught speaking Indigenous languages

- boys as agricultural labourers and girls as domestic servants.

- institutions often did not take records of who children's actual parents were.

- Bringing Them Home Report states that, "among 502 witnesses 17% of females and 8% of males reported experiencing sexual assault while in an institution, at work, or with a foster or adoptive family."

Social Impacts

DISCUSSION!

What do you think some of the social impacts would be to these children, their families and their culture?

- taken children are less likely to have completed a secondary education.

- three times as likely to have required a police record and two times as likely to use illicit drugs.

- the only improvement was a higher income because taken children were more urbanized so they had more access to welfare than rural communities.

"I was requested to attend at the Sunshine Welfare Offices, where they formerly discharged me from State wardship. It took the Senior Welfare Officer a mere 20 minutes to come clean, and tell me everything that my heart had always wanted to know...that I was of 'Aboriginal descent', that I had a Natural mother, father, three brothers and a sister, who were alive...He placed in front of me 368 pages of my file, together with letters, photos and birthday cards. He informed me that my surname would change back to my Mother's maiden name of Angus."

DISCUSSION!

It has been argued that Australia's stolen generation is an attempted case of genocide. What does the class think?

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commision

- report resulted in apologies.

- May 26, 1998- first "National Sorry Day."

- July 2000, the issue of the Stolen Generation came before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

In 2000, Phillip Knightley summed up the Stolen Generations in these terms:

"This cannot be over-emphasized—the Australian government literally kidnapped these children from their parents as a matter of policy. White welfare officers, often supported by police, would descend on Aboriginal camps, round up all the children, separate the ones with light-coloured skin, bundle them into trucks and take them away. If their parents protested they were held at bay by police."

Sydney 2000 Olympics

- Aboriginal Tent City to show Aboriginal rights.

- Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman- lite the Olympic Flame and won a gold medal in the 400m sprint.

- Cathy's grandmother was a victim of forced removal.

- Midnight Oil- while performing at the closing ceremonies they wore black sweatsuits with the word SORRY on them.

December 11, 2007

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced an apology would be made to Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal leaders decided the wording.

February 13, 2008

The apology was issued.

Films and Books

There are currently some compensation claims but it is not possible for the court to rule on behalf of plaintiffs because they were removed and at the time that was legal under Australian law.

References

people.howstuffworks.com

noongarculture.org.au

museumvictoria.com.au

theaustralian.com.au

"Bringing Them Home: The Stolen Children report."

Australian Museum

Names

Children were called mixed descent, half castes, "crossbreeds,' 'quadroons,' and 'octoroons.'

-Rise in mixed children was seen as a problem.

Cheif Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia AO Neville has been quoted saying, "Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white."

Australia's Stolen Generation

- children of Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders

- removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions under acts of parliament.

1869-1969

Australian Child Scoop

Home Report Cont...

Ebenezer Mission in Victoria

Doomadgee Aboriginal Mission in Queensland

Wellington Valley Mission in New South Wales

Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australian

Robert Manne, Australian Historian