These children were taken by the police; from their homes; on their way to or from school. They were placed in over 480 institutions, adopted or fostered by non-Indigenous people and often subjected to abuse.
In Australia, between 1910 and the 1970s*, governments, churches and welfare bodies forcibly removed many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. These children became known as the Stolen Generations.
1969. By 1969, all states had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'.
The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
Since colonisation, numerous government laws, policies and practices resulted in the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities across Australia.
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. '
Families say they feel powerless in their fight against the Department of Territory Families, which is removing Aboriginal children at a rate almost 10 times higher than non-Indigenous children. It's a crisis being dubbed a "second stolen generation".
In the 1860s, Victoria became the first state to pass laws authorising Aboriginal children to be removed from their parents. Similar policies were later adopted by other states and territories – and by the federal government when it was established in the 1900s.
It's a story that has been repeated for generations of Aboriginal families in Australia, and it's still happening today. In 2019/20, 952 Aboriginal children across NSW were removed from their families, a 2.6% increase on the year prior.
More than 21,500 Indigenous children are in out-of-home care as of June 2020, with 79 per cent permanently living away from their birth parents. The CEO of the national peak body for Aboriginal children and families, SNAICC's Catherine Liddle, said the statistics are more than damning.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
These children were forcibly removed from their families and communities through race-based policies set up by both State and Federal Governments. They were either put in to homes, adopted or fostered out to non-Indigenous families.
The NSW Stolen Generations Reparations Scheme provides one-off ex gratia payments and an apology to surviving Stolen Generations members who were removed by, committed to, or otherwise came to be in the care of the Aborigines Welfare Board under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, until the Act was repealed on 2 June ...
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 Victoria, the term 'Forgotten Australians' refers to people who spent time as children in institutions, orphanages and other forms of out-of-home 'care', prior to 1990, many of whom had physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse perpetrated against them.
In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a formal apology for the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians on behalf of the federal government. National Sorry Day has also inspired many public acts of solidarity and support for reconciliation.
Primary schools were to be 'free and fair', open to all children of school age within 2km of a school – though in practice access was often not equal. Aboriginal families in many areas enrolled their children in public schools.
According to Partington, Gower & Beresford (2012) it was common for Aboriginal children to be formally excluded from state schools in New South Wales up until the 1950s. Plans to officially exclude children in the 1800s became formalised as government policy by 1902.
An Auditor General's report this week revealed fewer than 43 percent of Aboriginal students in years 1-10 came to school at least 90 percent of the time in the first semester of 2021, down from 52.7 percent three years prior.
Compensation for Stolen Generation Survivors
All members would receive a $200,000 ex gratia payment per survivor plus a separate $7,000 payment per survivor for funeral expenses. The proposal would commence from 1 July 2023.
Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) is a grassroots organisation that advocates against the forced removal of First Nations children from their immediate and extended families.
It supported making a formal public apology to the victims of forced child removal, especially the Stolen Generations. The Apology was the first item of business when parliament opened in 2008, and was witnessed by the thousands of people gathered in Canberra for the event and was broadcast all over the country.
The Stolen Generations refers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were removed from their families between 1910 and 1970. This was done by Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, through a policy of assimilation.
Effects of the Stolen Generations
Children experienced neglect, abuse and they were more likely to suffer from depression, mental illness and low self-esteem. They were also more vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual abuse in state care, at work, or while living with non-Indigenous families.
The Inquiry found that between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were removed from their families under past government policies, but could not be more precise due to the poor state of records.