There were two aims to the
The emigration programme was set up to ease the burden on UK orphanages and to boost the populations of the colonies but it was later revealed that some migrants in Australia, who had been told they were orphans, may have relatives living in the UK.
From 1947 to 1965, eight approved organisations migrated a total of 3,170 children to Australia. The peak years for child migration to Australia were 1947 and 1950 to 1955. Around 400 children in total were sent by local authorities, a small percentage of the total number of children in local authority care.
They found that about 130 young children in the care of voluntary or state institutions were sent to Australia in what was described as the Child Migrant Programme in the period covered by the Inquiry, from 1922 to 1995, but mostly shortly after the Second World War.
The welfare system had not been coping with the number of children who needed care in the UK, so they decided to send them to other countries in the Commonwealth. It was not just Australia, children were also shipped to Canada, Rhodesia and New Zealand.
The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was a British government sponsored organisation. The CORB evacuated 2,664 British children from England, so that they would escape the imminent threat of German invasion and the risk of enemy bombing in World War II.
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.
Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont left their home in Adelaide to go swimming at the beach on Australia Day 1966 and were never seen again. Their disappearance changed Australian life forever.
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.
Forced adoption in Australia was a government policy that aimed to remove children from single, unwed mothers, and Indigenous families, among others. This policy had a significant impact on the lives of those who were taken from their mothers, and it has left many with long-lasting psychological trauma.
Over 7000 children migrated to Australia under assisted child migration schemes. The vast majority of children migrated from the UK, with a small number from Malta. Child migrants were adopted or brought up in children's homes, institutions, orphanages or foster care.
Work for child convicts
Girls worked as servants in free settlers' houses or farms; some worked in the female factories of Parramatta and Hobart. Boys also worked for free settlers, but some worked for the government learning trades to help build the new colony.
Pre-War, Catholic agencies migrated over 10,000 children to Canada, and 115 to Australia. It then migrated an estimate of 958 children to Australia with 946 under the auspices of the Australian Catholic Immigration Committee (“ACIC”), from 1945‑1956.
Fear that German bombing would cause civilian deaths prompted the government to evacuate children, mothers with infants and the infirm from British towns and cities during the Second World War. Evacuation took place in several waves.
The majority of the children were placed in permanent or temporary foster care arrangements, while hundreds of others lived in group homes across the state. They are children and young people who have experienced extreme trauma and have nowhere else to go.
Until 1782, English convicts were transported to America. However, in 1783 the American War of Independence ended. America refused to accept any more convicts so England had to find somewhere else to send their prisoners. Transportation to New South Wales was the solution.
1969. By 1969, all states had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'.
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.
Between 11,000 and 14,000 Aboriginal people died, compared with only 399 to 440 colonisers. The tallies of the dead are not the only measure of what took place, according to Dr Bill Pascoe, a digital humanities specialist and key researcher on the project. “We are always using conservative estimates,” Pascoe said.
Melbourne, Victoria, Denise McGregor was 13 years old when she was kidnapped and murdered in 1978. Melbourne, Victoria, Kylie Maria Antonia Maybury was 6 years of age when she was kidnapped and murdered in 1984. Noosa, Queensland, Sian Kingi was 12 years of age when she was kidnapped and murdered in 1987.
Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person who disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal on the evening of 3 May 2007, at the age of 3. The Daily Telegraph described the disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
The NSW Minister for Education, John Perry, instructed NSW schools to remove Aboriginal children from school if non-Aboriginal parents complained. Non-Aboriginal parents frequently claimed diseases were rampant among Aboriginal students, and that they were unhygienic.
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 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.