The stolen generation; the treatment of aboriginal children in the australian society

4.1. Colonisation and the first removal of Aboriginal children



Responsible for the first removal of Aboriginal children and the reason for the children�fs theft at all is the progress of Australia�fs colonisation at the end of the 18th century.
In the first decades of the European settlement there was hardly any contact between Whites and Aborigines. When the colonists went further inland to find new pastureland for their cattle the Aboriginal and European cultures clashed. The colonial right of the 19th century said that the Aborigines had to be put on an equal footing but the white Australian colonists were of a different opinion. For the civilised settlers the Aborigines represented no independent political and economical units and as there was no sense of national identity the colonists thought that the Aborigines were doomed to die out. Being thoroughly convinced that their culture could not be arranged with the European one because it was too underdeveloped the Aborigines were not integrated into the white society. What happened was the exact opposite. Aboriginal men and women were persecuted and hunted like animals. Those who were not killed had to live in ghettos completely controlled by the white settlers.
It was not put down when the removal of the first Aboriginal children was started but the accurate year is not important for the children�fs destinies. In most of the cases the children were left alive and did not have to suffer from the bad living conditions in the ghettos but they were completely segregated from their relatives and were given into the hands of welfare institutions.
After some years of European colonisation and proper chases on Aborigines the Aboriginal population had decreased immensely but also many mixed-racial families between white settlers and Aborigines had developed. From this point on government officials concentrated on taking away the children from the mixed-racial families. Why the removal of children took place almost exclusively in the mixed-racial families had different reasons.





4.2. Reasons for the children�fs removal



To the new-fangled ideas of Australia�fs society belonged the conviction that a child of only Aboriginal origin was not capable of assimilating to a white society. The whites thought that an indigenous child would not survive in the highly developed culture of the European people because he was not clever enough and just too naive. It was unimaginable that such dark children should go to a white school although their relatives had never learned how to read or write. The situation was a different one as to children from mixed-racial families. Having white blood in their veins, children from those mixed-racial families were given a chance to assimilate to the white society and the white Australians tried to integrate them. The problem was that this integration could not be realised as long as the children grew up in families with Aboriginal relatives. As long as a mother, a father or just a great-grandmother was of Aboriginal origin integration was not practicable. To solve this problematic the Australian Government decided to remove the children from their families. Government officials were instructed to take all children from mixed-racial families away and to put them into the charge of national or clerical welfare organisations. The organisations�O task was not only to bring up the children but also to teach them to be acceptable members of the white Australian society. To reach this aim it was necessary that the children joined the whites�O religion, Christianity. They were demanded to forget everything about their origin and the Aboriginal culture. With strictness and thoroughness many children were converted to the whites�O way of life. Before 1940 the Australian administrative bodies were given unrestricted power over all families with Aboriginal members. If a government official had the task to remove a child from a certain family he often arrived accompanied by the police and so the parents were not able to avoid the theft of their child. Although the \"General Child Welfare Law\" of 1940 required the proof that the children were neglected, uncontrollable or had to live in misery more and more children were removed from their families. Australia�fs Government did not try to improve the living conditions of the families with Aboriginal members but made the whites�O standards the only criterion for the children�fs theft.
How convinced Australia�fs representatives were of their politics of removing children for assimilation and that they also paid no attention to any of the families is shown by the following statement of a politician from Western Australia:
�hI would not hesitate for one moment to separate any half-caste from its aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic her momentary grief might be at the time. They soon forget their offspring\"

Certainly, the intention of Australia�fs Government to integrate the children into the white society was well meant, but for the children the process caused lot of grief.





4.3. The children�fs living conditions among the whites



To give the children a home the Australian Government built up many nursing homes and clerical missions. In such houses sometimes more than one hundred children had to live close together and were huddled into small dormitories. Usually the children were still infants or babies but the educators in those homes were ruthless and treated the children like worthless animals.
A child that did not obey to the rules was punished very hard. Some children reported that they had been kept only on bread and water in a dark room for a week or more because they had offended against a rule of their nursing home. The educators�O behaviour was not understandable for the children. On the one hand they were constantly advising the children to be Christians but on the other hand they treated them worse than bloody animals. It was not only the cruel treatment by the educators that made the children�fs life in the nursing homes and missions a life like in hell. The supply of food was often worse than the supply in their natural families. Several children told that they did not get enough to eat, just a bit of porridge for breakfast, a plate of soup for lunch and a dry slice of bread for dinner. In many nights the children were not able to sleep and cried because of their empty stomachs.
Some stolen children were a little bit more lucky and were released for adoption instead of being transported into a nursing home or welfare mission. Adoptions were only arranged to white families, most of them owners of big cattle and sheep farms. Some children reported that they had been lined up in white dresses by the welfare departments so that white Australians who wanted to adopt a child could go around and pick one out as if he was for sale. These foster-families were given the guardianship but the children rarely lived with one family. Sometimes they had lived with four or six different foster-parents until they reached the age of 16 and were free to decide about their life themselves. Although life in a foster-family was a little bit more pleasant than in a nursing home, it was not easy at all. Certainly, the children were offered enough to eat and a clean room to sleep but often they had to work hard in the white households or they were forced to slave away on the cheep and cattle farms without getting any money for it. Anyway the children were not accepted as full members of their foster-families.



Both life in a welfare home and in a foster-family had the consequence that the children completely lost their identity. Their names were changed and any contact to their natural relatives was refused. Often they were told that their parents had died. Because that the children were infants or babies they believed in the cock-and-bull stories of their \"new\" parents. Most of the stolen children got never into contact with the world outside the nursing homes or the houses of their foster-families. They were held like prisoners. It is obvious that such a treatment destroyed not only the children�fs childhood but also had far-reaching effects on the children�fs psyche and their whole life.






4.4. Abuses of stolen children



There were not only the overcrowded dormitories and the meagre meals in the welfare homes or the denial by their foster-families the stolen children had to deal with during their childhood. Sexual abuse of the children occurred very often, both in welfare homes and foster-families.
The girls were more at risk than the boys and statistics show that for a girl the risk of a sexual assault in a foster placement was much higher than in any other. Furthermore the statistics demonstrate that almost one in ten boys and just over one in ten girls were allegedly sexually abused in a children�fs institution. Behind the abstemious figures depressing fates are hidden.





4.5. Far-reaching consequences for a stolen child



Because of bad living conditions, an inhuman treatment, a life without a real family, an inner conflict between two cultures and because of all the other things a stolen child had to deal with during his or her childhood, every psychiatrist would predict for such a child a life in alcoholism, deep depressions, in jail or just a life with an early death. This was what really happened to many of the stolen children. After they were released from welfare homes and adoption families into freedom they saw no perspectives for their life. A stolen child being an adult today and mixing with the white society will not be accepted because of his dark skin. Many organisations have been founded to unite the stolen children with their families but what happens to a stolen child that meets his indigenous ancestors for the first time? The stolen children have never learned the Aboriginal way of life. They know nothing about the traditional language and have never practised the rituals or been able to visit the spiritual places of the Aborigines in the outback. If they try to mix with the Aborigines they will not be able to identify with them because they have too many white ways in themselves. So they are neither black or white. Some people call them simply a lost generation of children and that is what they really are. They are given a place at the bottom of the white society and they are not more than cheap labour force on the Australian job market, similar to cannon fodder.
Only a few stolen children were able to find a way out of this \"caste\". Most of them die from alcoholism or drugs, others are in jail for long years and some commit suicide in their deep despair.





4.6. The current situation of stolen children; the demand for a governmental

apology



Since the dark chapter of Aboriginal history has been opened and the incidents as to the stolen children are discussed in public the demand for a governmental apology has been expressed. Many stolen children claim this apology but until now Australia�fs Government has refused. Not either Sir Ronald Wilson�fs alarming report about the different fates of hundreds of stolen children could impress Australia�fs governmental representatives. They remain in cold reserve and pretend that there has not been a generation of stolen children at all.
Many white Australians sympathise with the stolen children�fs demand for a governmental apology and try to loosen up the tensions between Australia�fs population and the Aborigines. Especially the stolen children will not give up. \"I still feel the pain, every day. Sometimes it threatens to engulf me. But I�fm not going to let it destroy me.\", says Howard, one of the stolen children. His aim and that of the other stolen children is not to strengthen the case for compensation with the demand for a governmental apology but the apology should be a statement of \"regret\". The result of polls show that over one half of Australia�fs population support the stolen children. The statement of the stolen child, Roach, summarises the stolen children�fs request best:
\"The government can�ft even say the word s-o-r-r-y. Most Aborigines I talk to want a simple statement from the heart.\"