Stolen Generations - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Prester John (talk | contribs) at 05:56, 5 February 2007 (what acts?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 05:56, 5 February 2007 by Prester John (talk | contribs) (what acts?)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

The Stolen Generation is a term used to describe the Australian Aboriginal children, usually of mixed descent, who were removed from their families by Australian government agencies and church missions, under various state acts of parliament, denying the rights of parents and making all Aboriginal children wards of the state, between approximately 1900 and (officially) 1969, and concentrated into internment camps, orphanages and other institutions. Originally promoted as child welfare, the practice is today recognized as a human rights violation. Children taken to such places were punished if caught speaking local indigenous languages, and the intention was specifically to prevent them being socialised in Aboriginal culture, and raise the boys as agricultural labourers and the girls as domestic servants.

Disputes

According to the government enquiry , at least 100,000 children were removed from their parents, and the figure may be substantially higher (the report notes that formal records of removals were very poorly kept). Estimates have been made that between 10–30% of all Aboriginal children were removed, during the 70 year period.

Despite this, the nature, extent, and effects of the removals are disputed and debated within Australia to the point that the term "Stolen Generation" is sometimes referred to as the 'so-called Stolen Generation'. This is due to the dispute over the scale of the damage and legal use of the term 'generation'. Conservatives often quote the ten percent estimate, which does not constitute a 'generation'.

Nationally we can conclude with confidence that between one in 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 undoubtedly 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.

Occasionally the Stolen Generation is labelled as a myth, or more commonly, as an exaggeration. Similar actions were undertaken in Canada and the United States where children were sent to residential schools and Indian boarding schools.

The policy in theory

Although some children of full Aboriginal descent were removed, in general "half-castes", children having partial European, Chinese or Pacific Islander ancestry, were the most targeted.

A 1937 Federal Government conference on Native Welfare concluded in its final report that "...the destiny of the natives of Aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end."

as at that time it was believed that full blooded Aboriginal people were doomed to inevitable extinction.

The stated aims were:

- to culturally assimilate mixed-descent Aborigines into contemporary Australian society so as to aid in the biological assimilation of the native race.

"Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white." Dr Cecil Cook - Aboriginal Protector, Northern Territory.

The Social Darwinist ideology prevalent at the time held that the full-blood Aboriginal race would be unable to sustain itself, and would eventually die out by itself.

Mr Neville holds the view that within one hundred years the pure black will be extinct. But the half-caste problem was increasing every year. Therefore their idea was to keep the pure blacks segregated and absorb the half-castes into the white population....The pure black was not a quick breeder. On the other hand the half-caste was. In Western Australia there were half-caste families of twenty and upwards. That showed the magnitude of the problem. In order to secure the complete segregation of the children..(they) were left with their mothers until they were two years old. After that they were taken from their mothers and reared in accordance with white ideas.

A.O. Neville, Brisbane Telegraph, 1937.

This extract gives us the idea that some white Australians were clearly very worried by the apparently prolific nature of a half-caste Aboriginal population. In reality the Indigenous population in 1901 was around 93,000 as compared to 6,000,000 non-Indigenous.

The policy in practice

In general the practice was to remove children between the ages of two and four to be raised either by adoptive Colonial parents or in an Aboriginal Institution (which was anything from a Colonial run religious mission to a boarding house).

A recent Government report titled "Bringing Them Home" noted that some removals were certainly voluntary. Mothers may have surrendered their children for any number of reasons (ie:due to sickness, poverty, living arrangements, racism, etc).

Evidence from the report also indicates that in a large number of cases children were brutally, forcibly and even deceptively removed from their parent or parents, possibly even from the hospital shortly after their birth .

One account referring to events in 1935 stated:

"I was at the post office with my Mum and Auntie . They put us in the police and said they were taking us to Broome. They put the mums in there as well. But when we'd gone 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."

The report closely examined the distinctions between "forcible removal", "removal under threat or duress", "official deception", "uninformed voluntary release", and "voluntary release". There was evidence that some Aboriginal parents voluntarily sent their children to religious missions, in the hope that at least in this way they would be able to retain contact with their children and some knowledge of their whereabouts. With regard to official deception, the report identified several cases where parents were told by government officials that their children had died, even though this was not the case.

This report discovered that in many cases gross violations of human rights did occur.

The report also acknowledged that in several cases the state took responsibility for children that were genuinely orphaned or in a state of neglect. Defenders of the removals claim that mixed-race children were often severely neglected within Aboriginal communities.

Removed children were, in most cases, placed into institutional facilities operated by religious or charitable organisations, although a significant number, particularly females, were "fostered" out.

A common aspect of the removals was the failure by these institutions to keep records of the actual parentage of the child, or such details as the date or place of birth.

the physical infrastructure of missions, government institutions and children's homes was often very poor and resources were insufficient to improve them or to keep the children adequately clothed, fed and sheltered." Incidence of sexual abuse were disturbingly high, overall 17% of females and 8% of males reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse while under institutional or foster care.

The report condemned the policy of disconnecting children from their "cultural heritage". In the testimony of one Aboriginal; "I've got everything that could be reasonably expected: a good home environment, education, stuff like that, but that's all material stuff. It's all the non-material stuff that I didn't have — the lineage... You know, you've just come out of nowhere; there you are".

The social impacts of forced removal have been measured and found to be quite severe. Although the stated aim of the "resocialisation" programme was to improve the integration of Aboriginals into modern society, a study conducted in Melbourne and cited in the official report found that there was no tangible improvement in the social position of "removed" Aborigines as compared to "non-removed", particularly in the areas of employment and post-secondary education. Most notably, the study indicated that removed Aboriginals were actually less likely to have completed a secondary education, three times as likely to have acquired a police record and were twice as likely to use illicit drugs. The only notable advantage "removed" Aboriginals possessed was a higher average income, which the report noted was most likely due to the increased urbanisation of removed individuals, and hence greater access to welfare payments than for Aboriginals living in tribal communities.

The legal circumstances regarding the Stolen Generation remain unclear. Although some compensation claims are pending, it is not possible for a court to rule on behalf of plaintiffs simply because they were removed, as at the time, such removals were entirely legal under Australian law. Likewise, even though the actions may have contravened International Law, ruling on such a basis is outside the jurisdiction of Australian courts. At least two compensation claims have passed through the Australian courts and failed. The presiding judge noted in his summary judgement that he was not ruling that there would never be valid cases for compensation with regard to the Stolen Generation, only that in these specific two cases he could not find evidence of illegal conduct by the officials involved.

History of public awareness

Awareness of the Stolen Generation, and the practices which created it, only began to enter the public arena in the late 1980s through the efforts of Aboriginal activists, artists and musicians, (Midnight Oil's famous track Forgotten Years being one example of the latter.) The extensive public interest in the Mabo case had the side effect of throwing the media spotlight on all issues related to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia, and most notably the Stolen Generation.

In 1992, as media attention and public interest began to mount, the Prime Minister, Paul Keating made the first formal acknowledgement of the Stolen Generation, by saying in a speech that "... we took the children from their mothers ... It was our ignorance and prejudice." In 1995 the (then) Attorney-General, the Hon. Michael Lavarch MP, commissioned a formal inquiry entitled "The National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families".

This inquiry commenced in May 1995, presided over by Sir Ronald Wilson, the president of the (Australian) Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, and Mick Dodson, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). During the ensuing 17 months, the Inquiry visited every state and Territory in Australia, heard testimony from 535 Aboriginal Australians, and received submissions of evidence from over 600 more. In April 1997 the official report "Bringing Them Home - Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families" was released.

Between the commissioning of the National Inquiry and the release of the final report in 1997, the conservative government of John Howard had replaced the Keating government. The report proved to be a considerable embarrassment for the Howard administration, as it recommended that the Australian Government formally apologise to the affected families, a proposal actively rejected by Howard, on the grounds that a formal admission of wrongdoing would lead to massive compensation litigation. Howard was quoted as saying "Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies." . As a result Commissioner Dodson resigned from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, saying in a newspaper column that "I despair for my country and regret the ignorance of political leaders who do not appreciate what is required to achieve reconciliation for us as a nation."

As a result of the report, formal apologies were tabled and passed in the state parliaments of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, and also in the parliament of the Northern Territory. On 26 May 1998 the first "National Sorry Day" was held, and reconciliation events were held nationally, and attended by over a million people. As public pressure continued to increase, Howard drafted a motion of "deep and sincere regret over the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents" which was passed by the federal parliament in August 1999. Howard went on to say that the Stolen Generation represented "...the most blemished chapter in the history of this country." However, some felt that his motion stopped too short of saying "sorry", and therefore was unacceptable.

In April 2000 a scandal occurred when the (then) Aboriginal Affairs Minister, John Herron, tabled a report in Parliament that questioned whether or not there ever actually had been a "Stolen Generation", on the semantic distinction that as "only 10% of Aboriginal children" has been removed, they did not constitute an entire "generation". After a week of scathing media commentary and the attempted invasion of parliament by scores of angry Indigenous Australians, Mr Herron apologised for the "understandable offence taken by some people" as a result of his comments, although he refused to alter the report as it had been tabled, and in particular the (disputed) figure of 10%.

In May 2000, a "Walk for Reconciliation" was staged in Sydney, with up to 400,000 people marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a gesture of apology. A similar walk was staged in Melbourne later that year.

In July 2000, the issue of the Stolen Generation came before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva who heavily criticised the Howard government for its manner of attempting to resolve the issues related to the Stolen Generation. Australia was also the target of a formal censure by the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Global media attention turned again to the Stolen Generation issue during the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. A large "aboriginal tent city" was established on the grounds of Sydney University to bring attention to Aboriginal issues in general. The Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman (who was chosen to light the Olympic Flame and went on to win the gold medal for the 400 metre sprint) disclosed in interviews that her own grandmother was a "victim" of forced removal. The internationally successful rock group Midnight Oil obtained worldwide media interest when they performed at the Olympic closing ceremony wearing black sweatsuits with the word "SORRY" emblazoned across them.

Prior to the Sydney Olympics a mockumentary called The Games was broadcast on ABC TV. In the episode shown on 3 July the actor John Howard made a recording "for international release" of an apology to the Stolen Generation, ostensibly on behalf of the Australian people.

Shared experiences of the Stolen Generation

Children were taken from their families when it was perceived that they were likely to be at risk. Aboriginal Protection Officers often made the judgment on removal. Families, in some cases were required to sign legal documents to relinquish care to the state, though this process was subverted in a number of instances. In Western Australia, the 1909 Aboriginal Act removed the legal guardianship of Aboriginal parents and made their children all legal wards of the state, so no parental permission was required. Elsewhere, where this did occur, misrepresentation occurred regarding the child's care. “Early in 1965, I was made a ward of the State. The reason given by the State was that, 'Mother is unable to provide adequate care for her son'. In February 1967, the County Court of Victoria dispensed with my Mother’s consent to adoption. This decision, made under section 67(d) of the Child Welfare Act 1958, was purportedly based on an 'inability to locate mother'.” If it was decided that the child was to be removed, they would be taken to an orphanage, missionary or a private home for foster care. Generally the treatment of the fostered children was poor; “The Scottish woman hated me because I would not call her 'Mum'. She told everyone I was bad. She made us stay up late sewing, knitting and darning that pillowcase full of endless socks. Often we weren't allowed to bed till after 11 p.m. I was always late for school, the headmaster used to greet me with 'Good afternoon Jennifer'. Mrs S. did not allow me to do homework, therefore my schoolwork suffered and myself - a nervous wreck.”

By around the age of 18 the children were released from government control and where it was available were sometimes allowed to view their government file. “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 twenty 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.”

Some Aboriginal people do not condemn the government’s intentions, as they see that the intention was to offer opportunities for education and an eventual job. “I guess the government didn't mean it as something bad but our mothers weren't treated as people having feelings…Who can imagine what a mother went through? But you have to learn to forgive.”

Rabbit Proof Fence book and film

The Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence based on the book by Doris Pilkington Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence. In an interview with the ABC Doris recalls how she was removed from her mother at the age of about three or four. She was not re-united with her mother until she was twenty-five, and up until that time she believed that her mother had given her away. When they were re-united Doris was unable to speak her mother's language and had been taught to regard her culture as evil.

External links

The (Australian) Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission website
Bringing them home - The (Australian) Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission's education module on the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families
"Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families." The official Australian government report.
White Over Black: Discourses of Whiteness in Australian Culture in Borderlands eJournal
The Stolen Generations
[http://www.tim-richardson.net/misc/stolen_generation.html A well reserched and written essay with more detail on the original political characters.

References

"Australasian Legal Information Institute, Reconciliation and Social Justice Library". Bringing them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Retrieved March 17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Categories: