by Elaine Sihera

Created on: January 29, 2010

It has been noted in Australian history that, between 1910 and 1960, one in three (33%) to one in ten indigenous (Aborigine) children were "forcibly removed from their famillies" and placed elsewhere to "protect" them from perceived neglect; sixty years in which racism played a cruel part in the lives of those children (as young as four years old) and  hardly any family escaped its effects.

The Stolen Generation, as they are called, were at the mercy of their European guardians and were treated in very harsh ways. Not only were many brutally and insensitively removed from their homes, which lost them their culture, language and identities, but some were held in virtual 'concentration camps' and treated like prisoners instead of children. National Sorry day in Australia is meant to address that thorny issue which divided Australia in the 20th century. 

The practice of removing Aborigine children began with the seemingly innocent funding of the first school for them in 1814. The novelty of such a school initially attracted the Aborigine families to it. But, within a few years, hostility grew against it when it gradually dawned that the school was being used to distance the children from their loved ones and communities. By the middle of the 1800s there was a systematic removal of children for their assimilation into European culture. In fact, there was even a law (The Aborigines Protection Act 1869) which gave new powers to the Aborigines Protection Board to directly influence the 'care, custody and education of the children of Aborigines'. One of the regulations made under the Act allowed for 'the removal of any Aboriginal child neglected by its parents or left unprotected'. They were sent to a mission, an industrial or reform school or a station.

Effects of Separation

For example, in Queensland and Western Australia, the Chief Protector was able to enforce protection polices that allowed Indigenous people to be removed into large, highly regulated government settlements and missions to work, especially when they were about 14 years old. During the 1950s and 1960s, great numbers of Indigenous children were removed from their families in the name of assimilation. 'Not only were they removed for alleged neglect, they were removed to attend school in distant places, to receive medical treatment and to be adopted out at birth'.  

The sad effect of this separation was that the indigenous children were not permitted to use their languages in the missions,

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