Ceremonies in the great hall of Parliament House in Canberra are typically attended by visiting royals, heads of state and other dignitaries. On November 16 several hundred ordinary, middle-aged Australians, with pain in their faces and tears in their eyes, packed the hall to witness a ceremony devoted to them. It seemed a miracle that many were there at all. Shipped from Britain as youngsters, or plucked from broken homes and single mothers in Australia, some suffered childhoods spent in orphanages where violence, sexual abuse and humiliation were rife. Some of their peers killed themselves.
After years of campaigning, survivors gathered to hear Kevin Rudd, the prime minister, offer a formal apology for this “great evil”. It was the second such apology Rudd has offered in under two years. Early last year, he began his government’s first term by apologising to the “stolen generations”: children, many of mixed race, taken by the authorities from aboriginal families. In all, by 1970 over 500,000 “stolen”, migrant and non-indigenous children had been placed in church, charity and government institutions.
The prime minister’s latest apology has focused attention on Britain’s grim “child migration” scheme, under which children as young as three were sent to the former colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. One motive was racial: the young countries wanted “British stock”. Australia took about 10,000 children, most of them after Canada reduced its intake in the 1940s.
After a report 12 years ago cast light on the plight of the stolen generations, other victims of institutional mistreatment agitated for redress as well. They found a supporter in Andrew Murray, then a member of the Senate. Murray was born in Britain and placed in an institution, aged two, and sent to Southern Rhodesia two years later. Eventually he was reunited with his mother and emigrated to Australia.
Senate inquiries produced a report (‘Lost innocents’) on these child migrants eight years ago, and another on the “forgotten Australians” of the child institutions three years later. Both called for official apologies, which the former conservative coalition government of John Howard refused. Rudd promises to help victims who wish to trace their families or are seeking to make provision for old age.
After an inquiry in 1997-98, Britain’s government expressed “sincere regrets” over the migrations. Now Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, has indicated that he too will apologise formally, early next year. As Murray notes, apologies can do only so much. “Messing up children this way has profound economic effects as well,” he says. And that’s the least of it. “Lost opportunities lasting lifetimes can harm society dearly.” For that reason — as well as common humanity — even more important than the apology is the safety of some 30,000 children still under Australian government care.
(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)