BS: Apology for forced child migration

Subject: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:28 AM

I was completely stunned to hear this piece of news on BBC Radio 4, yesterday.

Australia's apology

It appears the 3 1/2 century custom of sending poor white children from the UK to colonies ended only 40 years ago. Some of these kids were taken from families, (they were not orphans). Some were split from siblings and some were as young as 3 years old. Unfortunately the places they were sent, were not equipped to cope with an influx of vulnerable children. Many were institutionalised, some made into farm labourers.

My partner who is English had no idea this practice was still happening so few years ago. I don't know what to say to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:38 AM

Call me cynical if you like but what does it achieve for the children it affected? It costs the politicos nothing and gains them a higher profile. I believe Gordon Brown is going to do the same today. Wonder why and wonder if any compensation will be paid...

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Tangledwood
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 03:12 AM

My guess is that the apology was made for equality reasons. One of Kevin Rudd's first actions on being elected was to apolgise to Aboriginals for the forced relocation of some of their children in the past. The media had been very vocal about these relocations for a long time prior to that, dubbing them "The Stolen Generation". Of course racism was usually cited. Whenever it was pointed out that the same treatment had been applied to UK children it seemed to be disregarded.   
However appalling this treatment seems to us today it was apparently well intentioned, aiming to give the children a "better" future.

At least there was a TV drama series aired on ABC a year or two back - made by BBC I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:55 AM

No compensation is being allocted, but grants are being made for them to visit Britain to find relatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:17 AM

Tears flow as nation hears apology

CLAN - Care Leavers Australia Network
CLAN National Orphanage Museum - scroll down to 'Do not touch the babies' sign. I knew a man who grew up in the 50's an institution in England - he was one of 25 young children in one house in this large institution & naturally the House Parents couldn't cope with 25 needy children.

National Maritime Museum gallery of Passengers

Google image search on child migrants

Child migrant facts

    * 500,000 children were raised in orphanages, foster care and other institutions during the 20th Century.
    * Many suffered sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
    * About 7,000 of these children were child migrants.
    * Child migrants were brought to Australia from the United Kingdom at the end of World War II.
    * Many child migrants were sent to Australia without the consent of their parents.
    * Child migrants were often used as cheap labour on farms and building projects.
    * In 2001 and 2004 a Federal Government Senate Committee conducted reports into child abuse in institutions.
    * Until today the Federal Government had not formally acknowledged this abuse.
    * People who suffered abuse while living in state care as children can seek support through CLAN by calling 1800 008 774.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Andrez
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:45 AM

The Brits need to acknowledge their part in this tragedy as well. Much as symbolism is important money helps. How about it Gordon? We've had Port Arthur, Maralinga and now this!

Then there is the Church and their role in the whole episode where is their "sorry"?

:-(

Andrez

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:46 AM

Earlier this year I was taken to visit Maitland Gaol. The ex-prisoner who showed us around said that on his first day in adult prison, he looked around and saw many of his old companions from the boy's home he'd grown up in.

Many of the hundreds of thousands of young people who were institutionalised never received an education, but were used as cheap labour. Many drifted into the prison system as adults, and many have never found their families.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 06:06 AM

Amazing that this cruelty has been common knowledge in Britain for years, "this was to keep Australia white" the words of a deportee on BBC Radio 5 this morning, this man stated that children as young as 3 years old were in his party of innocent orphans.
Surely the British government should have been the first to say they were sorry for sending innocent children to a life of serfdom.      

This conspiracy between the British and Australian governments and those"charitable" institutions was going on up to the 1970s.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 07:33 AM

Here's a song from Australian Bruce Watson
Lost Children of the Empire

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:24 AM

There was quite a lot of coverage of this a few years ago citing the barnardo's charity and their part in this.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:53 AM

Rabbit-Proof Fence, across oceans?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 10:09 AM

I was the Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Rumncoke
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 10:58 AM

A few years ago now I was on a Yahoo list and there was a message from someone in Australia who was coming to Britain with a brother and a sister on one of those paid for trips to contact their families, and out of curiosity I asked where they were coming to visit.

One of those weird coincidences - they were coming here - the coach dropped them at the local parish church and they were staying close to the local First school.

Towards the end of their visit I went to see them.

Their mother had died when they were young and their father had put them into an orphanage, and then allowed them to be transported to Australia.

The youngest could not even remember the voyage.

They told me that various family members had said to them that if they had known that they needed a home then they would have taken them - they told me with such sadness - but by the time it was realised that they had been given up, they had already left the country.

They were so quiet, eerily so - shy and subdued they had to be coaxed to speak and then listened to intently, or they would just fall silent. Usually people feel easy with me and chat and smile, bring out their remeniscences, but that was a tough one. Just once or twice they became animated, and for a minute or so they would relax, but then something would silence them again.

I supose institutionalised would be the term used, but they seemed more like broken people to me.

What compensation could make up for such distruction of the Human spirit?

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Marion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 11:52 AM

There is a parallel history of this in Canada, though I'm not sure when it was stopped.

I have a song about one Barnardo boy here: Frederick Shortt's Lament

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:58 PM

Some 100,000 children came to Canada. Some received care, many became slave labour on the prairies.

So far, nothing said by the politicians.
"Sidney Baker, 76, of Home Children Canada, says he's also expecting an apology from the Canadian government for the treatment of about 100,000 children who were scooped off streets in the U. K. and shipped to Canada from the 1860s to the mid-1930s."
Canadian Press, Nov. 15, 2009.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:59 PM

it is hard to understand the mind set(s) that thought that taking children from their parents and sending them away in the name of what? was somehow a good thing. And continuing the practice into the 1960s is doubly appalling. My daughter was born in 1962- and I'm here to tell you that 1960 was not part of the 'dark ages.'

Apology no doubt is important but it doesn't go nearly far enough. What those people need is insight into the reasoning of government programs.

One of the odd things. to my mind, is that during the war, the UK - or was it just the English? - sent their children out of harm's way. Then they turn around and sacrifice all these lives.

In Alaska, many Native children were taken away from rural parents and taken to boarding schools in the name of education. Some of those children, too, never got back home but by far most of them went back home after 8th grade.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 01:35 PM

I am still stunned. I did not know that the practice continued into the 1960's. Also heard from colleague today who told me Barnardo's did not keep records of these children making reuniting very difficult if not impossible.

How on earth can anyone or organisation or government compensate for a thing like this?

Not exactly like Rabbit Proof Fence Susan. That film was about mixed race children and hiding as well as stopping further corruption /mingling of races. But thanks for reminding me of one more film to put on my Christmas wish list.

Although both remind me of the forced Westernisation of Native American children. Taken from their homes, institutionalised, used as slave labour, abused, exposed to diseases they did not have the immunities to combat, poor diet, poor living conditions all in the name of Christian churches and Government desire to suppress the Native American way of life. I remember reading about the high incidence of suicide in the older children and the isolation when they were eventually returned to families and tribes. Heart rending.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 01:47 PM

An identical process happened in the US between 1854 and 1929. The "orphan trains" moved some 200,000 children from the East Coast, mostly from New York, to the Plains states. Their experiences were similarly mixed.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:52 PM

Two places in Oz reek of the abuse of power by those who were in charge of minors;
Parramatta Girls Home
and Hay Girls Institution

Parramatta had, during colonial times, served as a Female Factory
and there had been a similar institution in Hobart.

But the practices were similar in many institutions in most states until the onset of the women's liberation movements and the pill as contraception (both started in the 60s in Oz) began to carry way during the 70s. The State-run institutions themselves were part of the State govt apparatus and the "charities" and churches were "supervised" by State govts; the Northern Territory was the only "large" jurisdiction where the Commonwealth govt had any administrative control and it was applied mostly to Aborigines, in much the same manner, with much the same results.

Whatever ideological attitudes people may have about the Labor govt that got into national power in 1972, most would recognise that the Oz scene changed irrevocably, if only because of the appreciation that change was possible, after 23 years of unbroken conservative national govt reinforced by similarly conservative govts (by both major parties) at State level. The flow of change introduced by the Whitlam govt was extended and developed by the Fraser (Liberal) govt after Whitlam's Dismissal in '75 and even the conservative nuns who ran the Collingwood convent and forced minors in their care (including a friend of mine, reasonably well known on the folk scene here) to do the Archbishop's laundry ultimately gave up and relinquished the whole show. When the nuns closed down, that institution became several others, including the Collingwood Children's Farm, the Kindergarten Teachers' College and a pleasant performance centre in the chapel.

We all have to be eagle-eyed about who exercises power over whom, how they do it and to what end. These institutions operated out of sight for most of us and the govts that had oversight of them overlooked (in both senses) their responsibilities. We must maintain a proper knowledge of our communities and a willingness to exercise proper responsibility.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:10 PM

593(?) sent to New Zealand between 1949-1953. Much later, the NZ government worked to help them rediscover their identities. The BBC found that the number was 1300.
At the same time, some were sent to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa.
Records are not complete; the number of 100,000 sent to Canada durint the hundred year period 1860-1960 is probably low.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:20 PM

You might find this THREAD of interest, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Alice
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:18 PM

What was done to these children also reminds me of the Magdalene Laundries.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:00 PM

Swiss Child Psychiatrist Alice Miller once wrote a book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence - if you haven't read her book, check out the reviews, or better still read the book.

and all child raising is "for the child's good" - whether it's the beneficial teaching of manners & critical thinking, or the darker ideologies of twisted people.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Alice
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:56 PM

I remember Alice Miller's chilling description of how children are ritually terrorized at Christmas about what will happen to them if they are not "good".

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: ard mhacha
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 05:17 AM

My next boss lived in Utterson, George Truesetter by name

I worked like hell to earn my keep, but got his belt and blame

His children all went off to school, but I was left behind

The cows and pigs I tended were the best friends I could find.

Fredrick Shortt`s poem made sad reading, the above verse gives a true indication of the suffering endured by the children.

Thanks Marion.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Old Vermin
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 06:27 AM

Seem to remember this forced migration being mentioned at school in the 50s/60s. Spoken of as entirely sensible.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 08:18 AM

Rumncoke's story about the strange behaviour of some of these people in adulthood makes me wonder if there was more to it than emotional abuse - it suggests brain damage. Google for the "ringworm children" in Israel - Sephardi Jewish immigrant kids from North Africa who were given enormous doses of x-rays to their heads on arrival in Israel in the 1950s, ostensibly to treat ringworm but in fact as guineapigs for the US military. Most of them suffered lifelong illness and died young. The stuff I've found about this suggests the programme was not confined to Israel, but doesn't say where else it might have been done. The British "lost children" would have been a similarly vulnerable group, and Australia was an important centre for Anglo-American military nuclear experimentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 09:30 AM

Shocking as it is there is a missing piece of the jigsaw in the story. And that is what led the authorities to think the children's life was impoverished.
We know what happened - what we do not know is what would have happened without the actioned taken. In some cases they probably were judgmental on the parents. Who knows if it was well placed?
We see it now in different guises, Social Workers overloaded with cases and having to make judgements on whether to put kids in care. Which is traumatic enough but at least they have access to their parents in later life - sometimes.
And adults who have been through the system want to find their birth parents, even if the eventual contact resolves the questions. Not finding usually causes lifelong discomfort. I know of a few cases where the adult offspring have no wish to find the birth parents because their adopted parents were a godsend and they know enough not to want to find the cause of their changed parentage. Like my first ever girlfriend for instance (adopted aged 6).

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 10:12 AM

In the US we had a similar tragedy - the Orphan Train. Some found loving homes. All to often siblings were separated and children taken in for farm labor - indentured servants at best.

I saw the apology. Grown men were crying in their children's arms. Heartbreaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: goatfell
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 10:47 AM

what about the stolen genartion, when is the austalian goverment going to say to the aborigeines then?

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 03:48 PM

Saw something the other night about the role language plays in the development of infants from first hours after birth. Clinical desire to prove that removal of language delays brain development in infants. There was something about the forbidden experiment. That of preventing child from experiencing language in any form (even body and sign language, facial expression and sound) to measure actual brain growth and development in that vacuum.

Makes me wonder if that forbidden experiment did in fact and perhaps still does occur. I seem to remember reading that it was done in the middle ages by some lunatic royalty who wanted to see what happened to infants if they were never spoken to or emotionally engaged with in any way. Only had physical needs met. This maniac was searching for proof of human soul, I think. The infants which received only basic physical needs did not flourish.

Saw another show (yeah I am a documentary whore) about child slave labour in Asia, especially in the oriental rug industry. These boys are bought from parents in small villages (parent promised their child will learn a good trade), transported back to sweatshop life. They are beaten and starved. and little girls as young as 7 and 8 sold to be house maids for rich families. Saw one girl 13 years old whose hands were grossly deformed from 5 years hard graft for rich family.

I am too depressed to carry on with this. Don't think I can return to this thread. Sorry now I started it.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 04:12 PM

what about the stolen genartion, when is the austalian goverment going to say to the aborigeines then?

You might have not noticed, goatfell, that katlaughing's blickie to Folklore: 1967 Aboriginal Referendum (Aus) was a link to previous discussion.

There is also BS: At last! 'Sorry!'

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 04:28 PM

ABC TV (Oz) showed a docco last night about the Fairbridge Farm at Molong, NSW, one of several recipients under the Fairbridge Scheme whereby British children who were orphaned or from poor families were transport to the various Dominions to achieve two aims with one action: reduce the number of poor children in Britain and populate the sparse Dominions with white agricultural workers.

There were a few success stories. David Hill was the presenter of the docco, based on his book and was one of the successes but there were some travesties as well.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Lox
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 05:59 PM

Sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Nov 09 - 06:47 PM

Makes me wonder if that forbidden experiment did in fact and perhaps still does occur. I seem to remember reading that it was done in the middle ages by some lunatic royalty who wanted to see what happened to infants if they were never spoken to or emotionally engaged with in any way. Only had physical needs met. This maniac was searching for proof of human soul, I think. The infants which received only basic physical needs did not flourish.

You're mixing up two different experiments. James IV of Scotland had a theory that children would grow up speaking Hebrew if they were prevented from learning any other language, so had two children brought up on an uninhabited island by a deaf-and-dumb adoptive mother. (Or he intended to do that - we don't know for sure if he went through with it). The mother would otherwise have treated the babies normally, they only thing they wouldn't get from her was language.

The experiments on denying infants any emotional contact were done in the 1950s, in the US. The victims were macaque monkeys.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 08:27 AM

It is curious that this forced child emigration occured shortly after World War II: we appeared to have replaced discrimination by race by class and wealth discrimination. It seems even now one's OK but not the other,although I find it difficult to tell the difference.
I suppose an apology when some of the victims are still around may help some of them but it's coming from someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with the dreadful policy, so is quite empty. Apologies seem fashionable at the moment but some - such as apologising for the Crusades - are really silly and pointless.
Compensation is not on offer in this particular case. Should the Government pay compensation for acts of long ago.To some extent it depends who's on the winning side. Anyway the Government doesn't have any money so they would tax the people who had no part in policy making now or then. Perhaps the descendents of those who profitted out of say the Slave Trade should pay any compensation - their wealth in still around and in high places.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: goatfell
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 08:58 AM

ok never read that, sorry

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 09:07 AM

Wasn't there a behavioural psychologist who experimented with a form of sensory deprivation on his own young daughter, by keeping her for years strapped in a chair in a locked room, removed from any form of human interaction or stimulation? Wish I could recall his name..

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 09:24 AM

Ah, it was supposedly Skinner - but I'm wrong, it had nothing to do with sensory deprivation. A bit of a myth it seems.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 09:32 AM

In the UK we have Nick Ross, he presents Crimewatch which publicises difficult crime cases & re-creates some scenarios. His co-presenter was murdered by an "alledged" unkown person, for no known reason, on her doorstep.

He was on a genealogy programme and traced his adopted parents family tree. As he said, they were such wonderful parents he never wanted to trace his birth parents. Maybe he knew too much to want to trace the birth parents. There are success stories. And horror stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 09:48 AM

"Saw another show (yeah I am a documentary whore) about child slave labour in Asia, especially in the oriental rug industry. These boys are bought from parents in small villages (parent promised their child will learn a good trade), transported back to sweatshop life. They are beaten and starved. and little girls as young as 7 and 8 sold to be house maids for rich families. Saw one girl 13 years old whose hands were grossly deformed from 5 years hard graft for rich family."

There was a thread on MC some time back about Fare Trade Chocolate and the forced child labour involved in much non fair-trade chocolate.

One of the most unpleasant things about the entire thread wasn't so much the stuff about the child slave labour that goes into our everyday chocolate goodies, but the comments from posters here who proudly declared that they loved their chocolate toooo much to change their habits, and "Tee Hehe!!" could simply never give up their yummy chocolate fix for that horrible fair-trade stuff!!!

Yes, really... :-/

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 01:33 PM

shudder.... that is chilling, CS

Jack

We are both right and wrong on the infant experimentations.

Medieval Sourcebook: Salimbene: On Frederick II, 13th Century

[Salimbene] goes on to enumerate several specimens of the Emperor's "curiosities" or "excesses," though for sheer weariness he will not tell them all. Frederick cut off a notary's thumb who had spelt his name Fredericus instead of Fridericus. Like Psammetichus in Herodotus, he made linguistic experiments on the vile bodies of hapless infants, "bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the chidren, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 03:12 PM

It is a sad fact that children employed as labor would starve to death if the practice was stopped without some alternative to provide them food and shelter.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 03:58 PM

Well maybe if people like Mars bought fair-trade chocolate from fair-trade farmers who pay a wage, instead of demanding the cheapest possible product from farmers who use slave labour, there would be less demand for child slave labour and thus the resultant trafficking in children that results? The market would simply shift. Albeit with a tiny reduction in the profits of massive corporations like Mars.

I can't believe that consumers simply choosing to *swap* non fair-trade chocolate, to buying fair-trade chocolate, will result in children starving.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 04:33 PM

It is a sad fact that children employed as labor would starve to death if the practice was stopped without some alternative to provide them food and shelter.

While there might be some substance to such an argument in some parts of today's Third World I suspect anyone who tried to use it to justify avoiding Fair Trade commodities would get short schrift.

Back to the thread's original topic, the sending of child migrants as labour to Australia (although the primary targets of the Apology were those who'd been abused as minors in supposedly caring institutions), I'd be interested to know how many English children starved to death due to a lack of food and shelter during the 20th Century when the Fairbridge Scheme was under way. Dickensian England might have had large numbers and my failing memory has the notion that the Barnardos scheme ran from around the 1880s and I have no knowledge at all of Welsh, Irish or Scottish stats.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 05:11 PM

My remark about starving children referred to the lower substratum in the 'third world', as brought up by Crow Sister, a digression from the thread topic.
More digression-

Mars is a progressive company, engaged in sustainable water development and in helping farmers from whom they buy produce to raise foods that improve their diet.

It s not just a candy company, but markets rice (Uncle Bens) and animal foods (Pedigree, Whiskas, etc.), drink products, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: open mike
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:47 PM

wow didn't know that about mars...
Mars, Incorporated is one of the largest food manufacturers in the world and we operate in six business segments: Chocolate, Petcare, Wrigley, Food, Drinks, and Symbioscience.

Mars is the world's leading confectionery company, following our acquisition of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in 2008, with five, billion-dollar confectionery brands: M&M'S®, SNICKERS®, DOVE®, MARS®, EXTRA® and ORBIT®.

Mars is the world's leading petcare company, with three, billion-dollar petcare brands: PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN® and WHISKAS®.

Two of our brands are more than 100 years old: JUICY FRUIT® and SPEARMINT®. Seven of our brands are more than 50 years old: MILKY WAY®, SNICKERS®, MARS®, M&M'S®, DOUBLEMINT®, UNCLE BEN'S® and WHISKAS®

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: GUEST,Michael
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 08:15 AM

I think Rudd's apology was necessary; it's an acknowledgment of the fact that childhood deprivation and abuse really did happen.

I am a former child migrant, sent from England to Australia in 1953 - I was 8 years of age.

I suffered badly for many years as a result of abuse, deprivation etc.

Sadly, many former child migrants (from my experience) don't really come to terms with their history.

Fortunately through the grace of God & years of counselling, I made a complete recovery.

God bless you
Michael

http://michael-boystown.blogspot.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Apology for forced child migration
From: Howard Jones
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 01:38 PM

Whilst of course not condoning it, it's worth considering it from the perspective of the times. This was still only a few years after the war, and Britain was still feeling the effects - some rationing was still in force into the 1950s, and there were still many bomb-sites in London in the 1960s. The economic boom of the 1960s had yet to occur.

Australia was seen as a land of sun and opportunity. It was also crying out for immigrants. Many adults took a "£10 passage" voluntarily. I'm sure the policy was thought of as a win for all - to resolve a problem of too many orphans at home, give them an opportunity for a better life in a dynamic new country which they probably wouldn't get in the UK, and solve Australia's problems as well. There was perhaps less thought given to the emotional effects, but people had gone through long years of war and its aftermath and were perhaps less empathatic. Also, the class of people making these decisions were accustomed to sending their own children away to boarding school.

Perhaps if it had been handled differently, with more consideration to keeping siblings together and better supervision to prevent abuse, it might even have achieved those aims. Sadly, that wasn't to happen.