Bringing Them Home
Contents:
Europeans shoot 32 Aborigines after a white dingo trapper and station owner are attacked by Aboriginals. From until the head teacher on Cape Barren is appointed as a special constable with the powers and responsibilities of a police constable, including the power to remove a child for neglect under child welfare legislation.
The destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in ultimate absorption … with a view to their taking their place in the white community on an equal footing with the whites. Australian Aborigines Conference held in Sydney. It comes into force in A national referendum is held to amend the Constitution.
Australians confer power on the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people. Aborigines are included in the census for the first time. It provides recognition of Aboriginal land ownership, granting land rights to 11, Aboriginal people and enabling other Aboriginal people to lodge a claim for recognition of traditional ownership of their lands. Link-Up provides family tracing, reunion and support for forcibly removed children and their families.
SNAICC represents the interests on a national level of Australia's or so Indigenous community-controlled children's service organisations. Northern Territory elections are held and for the first time voting is compulsory for Aboriginal people. The Bicentennial of British Settlement in Australia takes place. Thousands of Indigenous people and supporters march through the streets of Sydney to celebrate cultural and physical survival.
It finds that of the 99 deaths it investigated, 43 were of people who were separated from their families as children.
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It decides that native title exists over particular kinds of lands — unalienated Crown Lands, national parks and reserves - and that Australia was never terra nullius or empty land. This law allows Indigenous people to make land claims under certain situations. Claims cannot be made on freehold land privately-owned land. The Commissioner's role is to monitor and report to the Commonwealth Parliament on the human rights of Indigenous Australians. The Going Home Conference in Darwin brings together over Aboriginal people removed as children to discuss common goals of access to archives, compensation, rights to land and social justice.
The High Court hands down its decision in the Wik Case concerning land which is, or has been, subject to pastoral leases. Children could be put into an institution or mission dormitory, fostered or adopted. Many spent time in more than one institution or foster family. Later many were sent out to work. Some moved from institution or foster family to detention centre or psychiatric hospital. In particular, children and their families were discouraged or prevented from contacting each other. That was one way they stopped us keeping in contact with our families. The Inquiry found that many children were told they were unwanted, rejected or their parents were dead, when this was not true.
Olive [aged 6 weeks] was taken elsewhere — Mr L telling me several days later that she was admitted to hospital where she died from meningitis. In , assisted by Link Up Qld , my sister Judy discovered that Olive had not died but rather had been fostered. Her name was changed. The Inquiry found many witnesses were taught to feel contempt for Aborigines. Those who knew their own heritage transferred that contempt to themselves. It was in our breed, in us to be like that. I was placed in a white family and I was just — I was white. How can you be proud of being Aboriginal after all the humiliation and the anger and the hatred you have?
Resources were insufficient to improve them, or keep children properly clothed, fed and sheltered. There was no food, nothing. We was all huddled up in a room like a little puppy dog on the floor. We had to scrounge in the town dump, eating old bread, smashing tomato sauce bottles, licking them. Half of the time the food we got was from the rubbish dump. However, the promise of a good education was often the inducement for parents to relinquish their children to the authorities.
I started school at the age of eight at grade one, no pre-school. I attended school for six years, the sixth year we attended grade 4, then after that we left school, probably 14 years old. I wanted to be a nurse, only to be told that I was nothing but an immoral black lubra, and I was only fit to work on cattle and sheep properties. The Inquiry found that children placed in work by the authorities were not entitled or trusted to receive their wages.
These were supposed to be held in trust, but many never received the money that was rightfully theirs. We never, ever got our wages. It was banked for us. And when we were 21 we were supposed to get this money.
We never got any of that money ever. Many witnesses told the Inquiry of being physically assaulted and brutally punished in placements. These children were most at risk of this treatment in foster or adoptive families. Almost a quarter One in six children who were institutionalised reported physical assault and punishments. WA Chief Protector, A. Dormitory life was like living in hell.
Bringing Them Home Oral History project
It was not a life. The only things that sort of come out of it was how to work, how to be clean, you know and hygiene. That sort of thing. But we got a lot of bashings. Sexual abuse was reported to the Inquiry by one in five people who were fostered and one in ten people who were institutionalised.
One in ten alleged they were sexually abused in a work placement organised by the Protection Board or institution. There was tampering with the boys These were the things that were done It never happened with an Aboriginal. So she [foster mother] just thought I was a wild child and she put me in one of those hostels and none of them believed me — I was the liar. The Inquiry found that welfare officials failed in their duty to protect Indigenous wards from these abuses, often in the very placements they had organised.
Bringing them home: The 'Stolen Children' report (1997)
He thought us kids were abnormal. He thought we were like robots, we had to look at her before we said anything. So we never had the chance to complain. Welfare never gave us a chance. The Inquiry found that the bonds permitted in these more enlightened placements went some way to overcoming the many other damaging effects for Indigenous children. We were all happy together, us kids.
We had two very wonderful old ladies that looked after us. It was just a big happy family. Going home is fundamental to healing the effects of separation. Going home means finding out who you are as an Aboriginal: Going home is fundamental to the healing processes of those who were taken away as well as those who were left behind — Link-Up NSW.
The Inquiry found people have many reasons why they need to trace their families. Reunion is important at the very least for discovering information about health and inherited illnesses and for developing intimate relationships. The Inquiry was told many separated children will never go home. The pathways have been lost; parents and families have died. Language barriers can inhibit reunions. People whose Aboriginality was denigrated in childhood may not want to admit to it.
Those who do go home experience a variety of emotions including anxiety and fear. We were sitting on the bench [the first time]. Well mate, the blinking pain. The last time she saw me I was three years old. I went to Link-Up who found my family had all died except one sister. I was lucky enough to spend two weeks with her before she died.
She told me how my family fretted and cried when I was taken away. They also never gave up hope of seeing me again. The Inquiry was told some reunions are unsupported, with inadequate preparation or counselling for either party. Some witnesses spoke of rejection by the community.
It was this kind of instant recognition. I looked like her, you know? It was really nice. She just kind of ran up to me and threw her arms around me and gave me a hug and that was really nice. And then suddenly there was all these brothers coming out of the woodwork. And uncles and aunts and cousins. Suddenly everyone was coming around to meet me. When I was 20 years old I was reunited with my mother for the first time shortly before she died. I suppose I had a natural curiosity to meet and know her.
My mother was the first Tasmanian Aboriginal person I had met. A few of my natural siblings were with her. The Inquiry found that an unknown number of Indigenous children were taken overseas by foster or adoptive families. For them, locating family and re-establishing links are particularly difficult, if not impossible.
Bringing Them Home report: 20 years on, unresolved trauma still remains | NITV
The importance of doing so is likely to be as great for them as for people living in Australia. Responses from churches and governments The Inquiry investigated and made recommendations on three ways governments could assist people affected by forcible removal:. The Inquiry found that most people have access to their own files but there are many difficulties:.
Bringing Them Home is the Australian Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. The page report of the 'Stolen Children' National Inquiry Bringing them home , was tabled in Federal Parliament on 26 May Read the Report online or.
The Inquiry recommended the process of accessing personal and family records should be easier and more straightforward. The guidelines for access should be developed by a state or territory taskforce with government, church and Indigenous agency representatives. The Inquiry found that many people need counselling when they read their files. The Inquiry recommended Indigenous community-based family tracing and reunion services be established in each region and funded to meet all the needs of clients for as long as they need it. There are a lot of untrue things about me on those files.
I have cried about the lies on those files. Can I please see my dad? The Inquiry recommended that counselling and support should be made available through Indigenous family tracing and reunion services. Healing Foundation Board Chair Steve Larkin said the failure to implement the recommendations of the original Bringing Them Home report has made matters worse for all Indigenous Australians. As a result, their grief, loss and anger is being passed onto their kids and grandkids.
Prominent Stolen Generations member, Florence Onus, and Steve Larkin, offered Malcolm Turnbull the new report, emphasising the need for a bi-partisan approach to tackle inter-generational trauma in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
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Unresolved trauma amongst the Stolen Generations is being passed on to their children and grandchildren, increasing the incidence of crime, ill health and social disadvantage. Florence is passionate about breaking the cycle of trauma through healing, education, cultural identity and spiritual nurturing. Gamilaroi and Wailwun woman Lorraine Peeters was forcibly removed from her family in Brewarinna in central-west New South Wales at the age of four. It wasn't until I was in my fifties that I suffered a mental health issue, trauma. There was an Aboriginal person inside, screaming to get out.
Today, Aunty Lorraine runs her own trauma healing program, Marumali Journey of Healing, to help other members of the Stolen Generations begin their own healing journey. She's also played a key role in the Apology to the Stolen Generations and hopes the government listen to the recommendations this time around. We live in hope that things may happen but nothing has. We we still live in hope," she told NITV. He was eight when he and his brother were taken from his mother and five of his siblings.
He says its important that the government helps rebuild the family structures that they took down. I gotta go and find help somewhere.
Related reading Survivors of the Stolen Generation, still sufferers of lost Aboriginality Several people, including members of the Stolen Generation, have gathered at the Sydney Opera House to launch commemorations for the 20th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report. In league with the Stolen Generations: Signout Register Sign in.
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