Australia says sorry for lost childhoods
November 17, 2009
At a recent ceremony in Canberra Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd said the he wished to apologise to all the British children who were shipped to the country on the promise of a better life only to find hardship and abuse. He said that Australia’s laws had failed all those children who had suffered under the migration system and for that he was sorry.
During the 1940s and 50s child migrant programmes saw around 10,000 British children taken out of their care homes and orphanages and put on ships bound for Australia. It was expensive to keep children in care in the U.K. and Australia was crying out for a good supply of healthy white stock.
Most children were told some version of the land of milk and honey story and told that a new and better life awaited them down under. On arrival many found that they had entered a world of slavery and abuse. John Hawkins was one such child. His single mother thought that her boy was going to be adopted by a British couple but he was really placed on a boat for Australia. He says that sexual and physical abuse was commonplace in the Australian care system and that those sent to Australia truly believed they would never see home again.
Rudd’s apology to those placed into a system which failed them so badly comes ahead of Gordon Brown’s expected apology for Britain’s policy of sending young children to its colonies around the world.
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