The tragedy of the "stolen generation"

Résumé du document

Between 1910 and 1970 up to 100,000 Aboriginal children were stolen or kidnapped from their families by policemen or other agents and were raised in white institutions. Most of them were around 5 years old or even less. A judicial process was rarely considered for such instances. The aboriginal children were known as the ?stolen generations'. The policy of the Federal and State governments gave the right to the police to take over the children who were neglected by the aboriginal parents. The government has the perception that the Aborigines were uncivilized and were incapable bringing up their children in a civilized manner.

Extraits

[...] They asked for the apology from the government and also demand for the reparation. The cases have been hard fought, as Government lawyers are arguing that removal of children was done for their own good. Even though in the beginning the Australian government seems to deny the existence of the Stolen Generation, the National Inquiry Reports prove it has really happened. The report states that genocide was used as a tool in order to destroy the Aborigines. Indeed, they suffered from the discrimination, victimisation and violation. [...]

[...] These children are known as the ‘stolen generations'. The aim of this policy was to culturally assimilate aborigines into European society. Why were they taken? They were taken because Federal and State government policy gave the right to the police to remove from their parents any Aboriginal child that was suspected of being ‘neglected'. The government thought Aboriginal people were uncivilised and therefore incapable of rearing their children. All aboriginal children were removed but the children of "mixed descent" were the most targeted. [...]

[...] Conclusion Aborigines have suffered almost the last two hundred years. Racism combined with coercive authority was an enormously destructive force. Even though the condition of the Aborigines were bad because of those removals, nowadays their conditions are getting better. The numbers of institutions that struggle for their recovery and social welfare proves it. Governments try to repay their faults by giving some advantages for the Aborigines community. The government even spent some fund for support their life. However, they felt a lot of difficulties in finding jobs and earning money. [...]

[...] Another principal effect of the forcible removal policies was the destruction of cultural links. By separate the children from the community, the culture, land, language, and identity has died. The scale of separation also had profound consequences for the whole Aboriginal community. Stolen Generations victims find returning to their families. Often times they discover that what their adoptive families told them was not true. The removed person and their families can feel guilty, despair, sad and anger over what happened to them and directed at those who caused it. [...]

[...] Almost one in ten boys and just over one in ten girls allege they were sexually abused in a children's institution (statistics). Food and living conditions were poor. They were often hungry. They were given little or no education, and certainly little of any value. They were expected to take on the responsibilities of work at a very young age and to go into farming work or to be domestics helpers. Aborigines could only aspire to unskilled labour, and an educated Aborigine was an anomaly who could never find a place in white society. [...]