Gordon Brown is to apologise for the UK’s role in sending thousands of its children to former colonies in the 20th century, the BBC has learned.
Under the Child Migrants Programme – which ended just 40 years ago – poor children were sent to a “better life” in Australia, Canada and elsewhere. But many were abused and ended up in institutions or as labourers on farms.
Officials are consulting survivors of the programme so that a statement can be made in the new year.
On Monday, Australia’s prime minister will apologise to the 7,000 UK migrants living there for the mistreatment. He will deliver a national apology to the “Forgotten Australians” and recognise the mistreatment and ongoing suffering of some 500,000 people held in orphanages or children’s homes between 1930 and 1970.
As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were told – wrongly – their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them…
In many cases they were educated only for farm work, and suffered cruelty and hardship including physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
- BBC News
16 Comments
They need to be careful of spreading the net too widely, lest they find themselves referring to things like taking children away from their families due to dysfunction or other issues that could be addressed with support and money. We still do that. Or institutionalisation. Damn, this needs a rant post.
To be fair, Armagny, I’ve known about this for years (there was a doco called ‘The Leaving of Liverpool’ IIRC), and saw it (like the Aboriginal Stolen Generations) as simply evidence of the way we did things then. We don’t do it now (and maybe, as you suggest, we should do more of it, because some families are patently so useless).
Back in the day, though, when it wasn’t kosher to have a child out of wedlock, or to be poor and parenting, or poor and black… then, it’s The Way We Did Things Then.
“and maybe, as you suggest, we should do more of it, because some families are patently so useless”
No noooo I’m suggesting precisely the opposite.
But on the way things were done, that of course is not a reason not to apologise and try to make amends. It is explanatory, rather than exculpatory.
Armangy:
Then doesn’t this apology has a certain intellectual symmetry to the previous one then? I don’t quite understand your opposition.
It is perfectly clear that the apology to the aborigines had a profound effect on their welfare. Lives are being transformed everyday, aborigines are even creating banks and setting up all manner of commercial enterprises. The data is clear, since that time their lives have improved no end, crime rates have fallen, they all have glorious new homes, and never a twitter to be seen about the former horrors that plagued aboriginal communities.
Seriously folks, this apology business is a good example of Leftist moral grandstanding. Yes, I am a Leftie but these symbolic gestures make me want to jump the fence.
“Seriously folks, this apology business is a good example of Leftist moral grandstanding. Yes, I am a Leftie but these symbolic gestures make me want to jump the fence”
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Look it might not seem thrilling, but actually admitting you have been the bad guy does make some difference in the long term. For example, one of the reasons many Asians hate the Japanese is because they won’t admit they did anything wrong (and, at least with China, they wouldn’t ever be up for compensation, so it’s not even money we’re talking about). I’m sure if the Japanese admitted they were wrong, the situation would be at least somewhat different. I don’t see why the situation with the Aboriginals was a lot different in this respect.
“Seriously folks, this apology business is a good example of Leftist moral grandstanding.”
Oh grow up. The apology idea was initiated by the recipients of the apology. Why not oblige? I suppose you think the apology to Holocaust victims was also totally unnecessary and all the work of nasty lefty German grandstanders.
” I don’t quite understand your opposition.”
I think I got my comments convoluted. My first was sarcastic, and I went back to my own blog to have a big rant on that point ( vaguely articulated point about the fact that some of the things the news shows were tut tutting about yesterday morning still happen). I support yesterday’s apology completely.
My messily used sarcasm then led to SL thinking I support more removals in the case of inept parents, which I definitely do not.
John I find the construction of this as a pure lefty thing kinda wierd. I don’t have the references but my recollection of the debate around the Stolen Gens apology was that it was often people on the conservative side who were pointing out that it wasn’t just Aboriginals who experienced unpleasant removals into care.
In terms of it just being platitudes though, I don’t completely disagree. I think the look in the eyes of so many older people yesterday said it all though- an apology really can go a long way (and lack thereof can be an immovable hurdle).
The difficulty with such apologies is that there are two kinds of apology:
* A specific apology saying, “I was wrong”; and
* A more general apology saying, “I’m really sorry this bad thing happened to you”
I think some of the opposition to the Stolen Generations apology came from people thinking in a defensive way, “Well I didn’t personally steal aboriginal kids away, why should I say sorry?” Or even, “We thought we were doing the right thing at the time, how can you apologise for something that was motivated by the best interests of the kids?” And I think in some cases, there was a genuine reason why the state took a kid away – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was the best outcome for the kid. Exactly the same analysis applies to these English kids.
I really don’t understand why there’s not the same debate about the Forgotten Generation apology. Is it racism (easier to apologise to white people than to black)? Or is it just that people can comfortably think, “That’s really England’s fault, not ours,” whereas there’s no way to pass the buck on the indigenous one. Or is it that having made one apology, and finding that the world hasn’t collapsed, we’re more easy about doing it a second time?
Look, I have some sympathy for John’s idea that the whole Stolen Generation apology was a platitude. My problem with it is this. It’s a nice idea in principle, but if it’s not backed up by action, then it’s just so much horse sh!t. So if aboriginal kids are still being charged for receiving a freddo frog, then we still have a problem, and no apology is going to change that.
But on the other hand, once the Stolen Generation apology was made, I couldn’t help being moved by the relief shown by people. So I’m prepared to admit it was more than a platitude – symbolic action can be important. I just also want it to be backed up by MORE than symbolism.
“I just also want it to be backed up by MORE than symbolism.”
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Even if it was just symbolism, I still think it would be important. Japan doesn’t have to do or pay anything to China, for example, if they apologise (I seem to remember that Mao signed away all rights to compensation, as he didn’t want the Japanese money). It’s the fact that you are admitting that you were wrong which is important (and this exists on multiple levels — country to country — and person to person), and this is important in itself.
Conrad – totally agreed. A lot of what people want from legal actions is not money, but a sense of vindication – the notion that the other person admits they have done wrong and has to say so publicly. So there’s definitely that aspect to the apologies. The problem is the motive behind them (genuine, or cynical political gambit?) I don’t suppose it matters much as long as the people feel vindicated.
Conrad I agree and it is in part the acknowledgement as a precursor to trust building that it won’t happen again. I think with Japan we view them as benign these days, and it isn’t always understood that for China and North Korea in particular, Japan is seen as a potential security threat. The fact that they haven’t apologised, and give mixed messages on whether they are really contrite at all about their imperial phase (which was after all far longer than the German one), just fuels the already sensitive security dilemmas that keep East Asia unsettled.
See, I’m genuinely not a fan of leaving children with inept parents, especially nowadays when liberal abortion laws have meant that a problem on the scale we saw before 1970 has largely gone away; there are now more willing adopters than children to adopt.
There’s pretty good research indicating that while children (generally) do better with both biological parents and worse with stepparents, it seems that formal legal adoption cancels out much of the negative consequences attached to both stepparents and fostering. There are a variety of theories as to why, but no-one can pin them down with any causal certainty.
“more willing adopters than children to adopt. ”
Maybe, but we are talking here about the forced removal of kids who are usually older than newborns.
I think removing people’s children is pretty much the most onerous thing you can do to them, apart from blowing their brains out. It has to be done in certain cases, but ‘inept’ is a broad word and I think that for the state to make a decision that it will use its power to break up a family, in preference to putting in extra support services for example, is just wrong.
Perhaps because of my time in that field, perhaps because I am an adoptee and have read plenty on it, but I maintain the simple ‘quaint’ notion that any kid who has parents who genuinely love them has something priceless, and the chance of finding that elsewhere if the state tears it apart because, for example, dad is a heavy ganja smoker or mum’s a bit dim, is modest.
There are plenty of worse cases that require the priority and resources of the child welfare system…
There’s pretty good research indicating that while children (generally) do better with both biological parents and worse with stepparents, it seems that formal legal adoption cancels out much of the negative consequences attached to both stepparents and fostering. There are a variety of theories as to why, but no-one can pin them down with any causal certainty.
Be a while before we sort that one out. Just today I saw a doco, Primal Instinct, a program addressing the neurobiology of explosive anger. Data from varying sources is beginning to paint a picture that indicates childhood deprivation has serious consequences for adult behavior. This is not always the case, as they mentioned in this program, it was a combination of certain genes for the serotonin transporter and\or MAOs (these are enzymes which degrade serotoning, dopamine and nore), together with childhood deprivation. In one study the correlation was striking: 85% There are a whole lot of difficult and troubling ethical and legal questions here.
It is a very sad thing to have to remove children from their parents but it the long run, given the right care, the children will typically have a better life. Take for example the recent research by Marion Diamond et al. They found that children from simply deprived backgrounds, not abusive backgrounds, had brain wave patterns similiar to those of brain injury victims. That is deeply disturbing and given such findings it is very easy to see how generational transmission of bad behavior can be mediated as much by environment by genes.
If people wish to seek compensation for past wrong it should done through the courts not the govt. In relation to the Stolen Generation my understanding is the a trial case in the Federal Court in Darwin was thrown out when it was revealed that the children were removed because the aboriginal camp was near a mine so the aborigines were engaging in prostitution and there was clear evidence of child neglect occurring. To my knowledge there has not been a single case brought before the courts at that time.
Step parents are have no particular vested interest in the welfare of a child, adoptees, prepared to treat the children as their own, which doesn’t happen in foster care, make a lifelong commitment. Studies like those on maternal deprivation and enriched environments can cast some light on what is happening here. Just a little light though.
John:
“Given the right care” is the problem – institutions almost always get underfunded and end up giving bad care, even with best intentions, love and effort from the staff. With bad staff they are terrible.
I agree with John that adoption with commitment works, but there are few adopting parents for school age kids. Mum’s latest boyfriend is often a disaster, abusing the kids. I am foster parent of a teenager.
On the other hand, “In many cases they were educated only for farm work” doesn’t sound any worse than rural australian-born kids of the same period.