Why were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children taken from their families? The forcible removal of First Nations children from their families was based on assimilation policies, which claimed that the lives of First Nations people would be improved if they became part of white society.
By 1969, all states had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'.
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.
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.
In 1915, the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 (NSW) was introduced, this Act gave the Aborigines' Protection Board the authority to remove Aboriginal children without having to establish in court that the children were subject to neglect.
Around 33 per cent of adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are descendants of Stolen Generations survivors. In Western Australia, this figure is as high as 46 Per cent. Today, Stolen Generations survivors live right across Australia. Most (73%) live in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.
Most Aboriginal deaths in custody are due to inadequate medical care, lack of attention and self-harm. The Guardian database shows indigenous people are three times less likely to receive medical care than others.
In 1920, under the Indian Act, it became mandatory for every Indigenous child to attend a residential school and illegal for them to attend any other educational institution.
Residential school education was intended to convert Indigenous children to Christianity; to strip them of their culture, values and social behaviours and to “Westernize” them. Missionaries and European settlers, who saw Indigenous people as “savages,” believed Western civilization was superior.
Official government estimates are that in certain regions between one in ten and one in three Indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.
Barriers include inappropriate teaching materials and a lack of Aboriginal role models. Aboriginal education requires connection to communities and informed parents.
They can go home when the family issues are addressed. But there are times when DCJ or the police have to remove a child or young person from their parents or carers. This step can only be taken when: there are reasons to suspect that the child or young person is at immediate risk of serious harm, and.
In NSW, under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board had wide ranging control over the lives of Aboriginal people, including the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families under a policy of 'assimilation'.
Many of the students had diseases such as tuberculosis, scrofula, pneumonia and other diseases of poverty. Often, the students with tuberculosis were sent home to die, so the mortality rate of the boarding schools is actually greater than the number of children who died at those institutions.
These students were punished for speaking their native languages or observing any indigenous traditions, routinely physically and sexually assaulted, and in some extreme instances subjected to medical experimentation and sterilization. The removals continued in Australia until the 1970s.
In the residential schools, siblings were often separated to help break traditional habits, and by extension, family ties. Under the auspices of assimilation, speaking native languages was forbidden, even outside of the classroom, as was traditional clothing, food and other culturally specific habits or traditions.
Information exists in archives about the deaths of children, which has contributed to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation's Memorial Register. As of May 24, 2022, the register has 4,130 confirmed names of children who died while at Indian Residential Schools.
The bereavement experienced by many forcibly removed Indigenous children was traumatic and later they were often told they had been rejected or that family members were dead (typically neither was true).
cancer (20%), with lung cancer being the most common cause of such deaths (4.9% of all deaths) external causes of injury and poisoning (15%) endocrine, metabolic and nutritional disorders (including diabetes) (9.1%)
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.
Poverty, assimilation policies, intergenerational trauma and discrimination and forced child removals have all contributed to the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in care, as has a lack of understanding of the cultural differences in child-rearing practices and family structure ( ...
Children today still face the aftermath from colonization and attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples, this developing into intergenerational trauma (Blackstock, 2009). This contributed to the elevated numbers of Indigenous children in foster care, which can lead to them being disconnected to their culture.
Since the colonisation of Australia by European settlers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have experienced extreme hardships, ranging from the loss of traditional culture and homelands to the forced removal of children and denial of citizenship rights.
In Australia, on average, 48 young people under the age of 18 go missing every day. While First Nations young people make up less than 6% of the Australian population under the age of 18, they comprise around 20% of missing children.
We say sorry to those Aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families through the first seven decades of the 20th century. In doing so, we reach from within ourselves to our past, those whose lives connect us to it, and in deep understanding of its importance to our future.