Katana VentraIP

Stolen Generations

The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905[1] and 1967,[2][3] although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.[4][5][6]

"Stolen Children" redirects here. For other uses, see Stolen Children (disambiguation).

Official government estimates are that in certain regions between one in ten and one in three Indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.

Effects on the removed and their descendants

Removed people

The stated aim of the "resocialisation" program was to improve the integration of Aboriginal people into modern [European-Australian] society; however, a recent study conducted in Melbourne reported that there was no tangible improvement in the social position of "removed" Aboriginal people as compared to "non-removed". Particularly in the areas of employment and post-secondary education, the removed children had about the same results as those who were not removed. In the early decades of the program, post-secondary education was limited for most Australians, but the removed children lagged behind their white contemporaries as educational opportunities improved.[30]


The study indicated that removed Aboriginal people were less likely to have completed a secondary education, three times as likely to have acquired a police record, and were twice as likely to use illicit drugs as were Aboriginal people who grew up in their ethnic community.[30] The only notable advantage "removed" Aboriginal people achieved was a higher average income. The report noted this was likely due to the increased urbanisation of removed individuals, and greater access to welfare payments than for Aboriginal people living in remote communities.[30] There seemed to be little evidence that removed mixed-race Aboriginal people had been successful in gaining better work even in urbanised areas.


By around the age of 18, the children were released from government control. In cases where their files were available, individuals were sometimes allowed to view their own files. According to the testimony of one Aboriginal person:

The documentary (1983) was the first film to deal with the Stolen Generations. Directed and produced by Alec Morgan, it won several international and Australian awards. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation did not air it for two years. The film is now standard fare in educational institutions, and has been highly influential.

Lousy Little Sixpence

The documentary film (2006), directed by Melanie Hogan,[96][97] featured Bob Randall. He is an elder of the Yankunytjatjara people and one of the listed traditional owners of Uluru. He was taken away from his mother as a child, living at the government reservation until he was 20, and working at various jobs, including as a carpenter, stockman, and crocodile hunter. He helped establish the Adelaide Community College and has lectured on Aboriginal cultures. He served as the director of the Northern Australia Legal Aid Service and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander centres at the Australian National University, University of Canberra, and University of Wollongong.[98]

Kanyini

Episode 5, "Unhealthy Government Experiment", of the 1998 documentary television series First Australians concerns the Stolen Generations in Western Australia.

SBS

(1938-2023), Doctor of Indigenous History, Order of Australia

Gordon Briscoe

(1943–2022), stage and screen actor and activist

Jack Charles

soprano, actor, composer and playwright

Deborah Cheetham

(Sister Kate)

Katherine Mary Clutterbuck

political activist and leader

Ken Colbung

(1942–2012), co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee

Ningali Cullen

born Quinlyn Warrakoo, forced name change to Belinda Boyd, deceased at 107 years of age, making her the longest-lived member of the Stolen Generation

Belinda Dann

(1930-2022), the Warumungu woman named by Kevin Rudd, in his Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008

Lorna Fejo

(born 1943), retired Perth Children's Court magistrate

Sue Gordon

(1955–2010), singer-songwriter and partner of Archie Roach

Ruby Hunter

WA Protector Of Aborigines from 1915 to 1945 and advocate of the removal of children

A. O. Neville

(1932–2020), WA educator and author

May O'Brien

AC, CBE, DSG, nurse, public administrator and Indigenous rights activist

Lowitja O'Donoghue

author of Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

Doris Pilkington Garimara

Indigenous Australian of the Year

Bob Randall

(born 1932), elder and advocate for the Stolen Generation; NSW State Recipient of Senior Australian of the Year 2021; oldest living survivor of those forcibly removed under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW), having been sent to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls[102] Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, paid homage to her on 13 February 2021, the 13th anniversary of the Apology.[103]

Aunty Isabel Reid

(1954–1996), CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service 1990–1995, author of Telling Our Story which instigated the National Inquiry into Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families

Rob Riley

(1956–2022), singer-songwriter and activist, partner of Ruby Hunter

Archie Roach

Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia

Cedric Wyatt

Trauma and healing

Trauma suffered as a result of children being separated from their families and forced to adopt a culture foreign to them is ongoing and passed down through generations.[104]


The Healing Foundation is a government-funded body[104] established on 30 October 2009 as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation was established after several months of consultation with community representatives.[105] The head office is in Canberra, with branches in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and on the Torres Strait Islands. As of 2020 the Foundation had provided funding for more than 175 community organisations to develop and run healing projects, "to address the ongoing trauma caused by actions like the forced removal of children from their families". It also conducts research into Indigenous healing.[106]


The Marumali Program was designed and established by Stolen Generations survivor Lorraine Peeters, starting with her presentation of the model she had created, the "Marumali Journey of Healing Model", to a conference of mental health professionals at a conference in Sydney in 1999. Her body of work was copyrighted and subsequently circulated to and used by many organisations to help survivors to heal from specific types of trauma suffered as a result of the removals. Peeters then developed the Marumali Program to train Indigenous counsellors to use her model.[107] As of June 2020, she and her daughter continue to give workshops, both in the community and in prisons. Marumali is a Gamilaroi word meaning "to put back together", and she says it relates to the ultimate goal of reconnecting with what has been lost. She continues to advise the Healing Foundation.[104]

Aboriginal Protection Board

Aboriginal reserve

American Indian boarding schools

Australian Legislative Ethics Commission

Canadian Indian residential school system

Cultural assimilation of Native Americans

Cultural genocide

Forced adoption

Hidden Generations

Institutional abuse

Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany

("children of the highway"), program of forced removal and institutionalization of children of nomadic Yenish groups in Switzerland during the 20th century

Kinder der Landstrasse

children of Republican parents abducted during the Spanish Civil War

Lost children of Francoism

(1934), officially "the Royal Commission Appointed to Investigate, Report and Advise Upon Matters in Relation to the Condition and Treatment of Aborigines"

Moseley Royal Commission

Native schools in New Zealand

Native Tongue Title

(film)

Our Generation

Protector of Aborigines

the removal of children from Indigenous families in Canada beginning in the 1960s

Sixties Scoop

(aka "The Intervention")

Northern Territory National Emergency Response

in Israel

Yemenite Children Affair

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)

Stolen Generations Bibliography: A select bibliography of published references to the separation of Aboriginal families (and) the removal of Aboriginal children

Background note: "Sorry": the unfinished business of the Bringing Them Home report, Australian Parliamentary Library, 4 February 2008

(PDF)

Bibliography on Kahlin Compound at the Northern Territory Library.