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Posted by WUNRN in Sensitivity for the Girls, Now Women, Impacted by This Article.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-says-sorry-to-forgotten-children-20091116-ihcd.html

Sydney Morning Herald - Australia: Website Link includes VIDEO.

 

November 16, 2009

 

AUSTRALIA - PRIME MINISTER MAKES EMOTIONAL APOLOGY TO l/2 MILLION

"FORGOTTEN AUSTRALIAN" CHILDREN, INCLUDING CHILD MIGRANTS, WHO

FACED ABUSE AND NEGECT IN AUSTRALIAN CARE HOMES OVER DECADES

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an emotional apology today to half-a-million "Forgotten Australians", including British child migrants, who faced abuse and neglect in care homes over decades.

Mr Rudd, echoing his historic 2008 statement to Australia's Aborigines, addressed about 1000 victims of abuse in orphanages and institutions between 1930 and 1970 who packed Parliament House.

"We come together today to offer our nation's apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent, that we are sorry," he said.

"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

"Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost. Childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work."

A 2004 Senate inquiry recommended the apology to those who suffered sexual abuse, violence and emotional trauma in state and church-run orphanages, foster homes and institutions.

The inquiry unearthed hundreds of disturbing stories of children placed in care due to family breakdown, because their mothers were unmarried or because they were considered uncontrollable.

It found widespread assault and emotional, physical and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, humiliation and the deprivation of food, education and medical care.

"The truth is, this is an ugly story. The truth is great evil has been done," Mr Rudd said.

The statement has already made waves in Britain where Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to apologise for sending more than 130,000 poor children to Australia and other former colonies.

Mr Rudd told those gathered that Australia was "sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care".

He said that part of Australia's history was filled with shame.

"As a nation we must now reflect on those who did not receive proper care.

"We look back with shame that so many of you were left cold, hungry and alone and with nowhere to hide and nobody, absolutely nobody, to whom to turn.

Mr Rudd acknowledged the pain of children shipped to Australia as migrants.

"Robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children, but regarded instead as a source of child labour.

"To those of you who were told you were orphans, brought here without your parents' knowledge or consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers, fathers and the pain these lies have caused for a lifetime. "

Mr Rudd admitted many lies had been told to children who were shipped from Britain.

"To those of you separated on the dockside from your brothers and sisters, taken alone and unprotected to the most remote parts of a foreign land, we acknowledge today that the laws of our nation failed you.

"And for this we are deeply sorry."

He also touched on the families left behind.

"We thank them for the faith, the love and the depth of commitment that has helped see you through the valley of tears that was not of your own making."

Mr Rudd then turned to those Forgotten Australians who had committed suicide.

"We recognise the pain you have suffered. Pain is so profoundly disabling so let us together as a nation allow this apology to begin to heal this pain."

Mr Rudd said the apology represented a turning point for "shattered lives" and the nation's political leadership.

"For governments at all levels of every political hue and colour to do all in our power to never allow this to happen again," he said to sustained applause.

The protection of children was the "sacred duty of us all".

Mr Rudd warned that a disservice would be done to victims of abuse if it was sought to gloss things over.

"Because the truth is great evil has been done.

"Therefore hard things must be said about how this was all possible in this country of a fair go," Mr Rudd said.

"Unless we are now transparent about what had been done in our nation's name our apology can never be complete."

It was believed that more than 500,000 children - half Adelaide's population - were placed in care under various arrangements during the past century, Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd spoke of some individual cases including that of a man named Gary.

"He told me at the age of six or seven he tried to hang himself from the swings because he wanted to be with his brothers.

"He remembers being picked up from the train station on a freezing night in a big red truck and a row of numbered seats, he was told to sit in seat number three, he was given a number."

Then there were twins Robyn and Judy whom the Prime Minister met last week in Bathurst.

Their mother left home when they were barely five years old. They were placed in a church home. They were hit by belt buckles and bamboo, and always felt like second-class citizens.

Gus from Queensland arrived in Australia from Ireland at the age of four or five in the 1950s. His was a tale of physical and sexual abuse more than a decade.

"Whether it is Gary or Gus, or Robyn or Judy, there is an eerie similarity to so many of the stories," Mr Rudd said.

"Stories of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

"Stories of a lack of love, experiences which stay with them to this day. Each told me that such was the trauma they experienced in institutional care that they suffered such things as bed wetting for many, many years.

"This of course is deeply personal, deeply deeply personal."

Mr Rudd said survivors could now access counselling services.

They could also assist the National Library of Australia to collect their stories for an oral history record.

The Government also recognised the concerns of Forgotten Australians who needed support as they grew old.

"The Government will identify care leavers as a special-needs group for aged-care purposes," he said, prompting another round of sustained applause.

"To ensure that providers are assisted to provide care that is appropriate and responsive, and provide a range of further counselling and support services."

A national find-and-connect service would also be established, providing Australia-wide co-ordinated family tracing to locate family history files and help reunite survivors with their families.

The service would create a searchable national database across state and territory jurisdictions.

The Government would continue to support advocacy groups such as the Child Migrant Trust, the Alliance of Forgotten Australians and Care Leavers of Australia Network.

Mr Rudd said governments must commit themselves to the systematic auditing, inspection and quality assurance of child protection services they administer.

Mr Rudd made special mention of former Australian Democrats senator Andrew Murray, saying his work in seeking recognition for Forgotten Australians had been extraordinary.

"It is also important today to honour the advocacy groups who have stood by you through thick and thin."

Mr Rudd also apologised for the long wait Forgotten Australians had endured before the apology.

"Children, it seems, were not to be believed.

"So many Senate reports, nearly a decade of deliberation and a unanimous recommendation that the Commonwealth apologise and we finally do so today."

Mr Rudd then brought his speech into the present, saying it was important to maintain the culture of checking regularly on care centres across the nation.

Up to 30,000 children were in the care of state and territory governments around Australia, he said.

"Governments must put in place every protection possible to reduce the risk of mistreatment in the future.

"If you hurt a child, a harmed adult will often result.

"In Andrew [Murray's] words, we must do everything possible to break the cycle."

Mr Rudd said the nation needed to improve the care of all children.

He called on Australians to take the apology as an opportunity to change.

"The Senate named you the Forgotten Australians, today and from this day forward it is my hope that you will be called the Remembered Australians."





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