Report accuses government of genocide
By Craig Cormick
In launching the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission president Sir Ronald Wilson said, "We as a committee have decided that what was done meets the international definition of genocide".
The report, Bringing Them Home, was launched at a very emotional and impromptu session at the Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne last week.
The key recommendations— that governments should apologise for the wrong that was done and compensation should be made — have been rejected by the federal government.
Prime Minister John Howard went so far as to tell Coalition MPs that the removal of Aboriginal children was done with good intentions, and many of the children were subsequently well cared for.
Aboriginal author and historian Jackie Huggins, one of the inquiry commissioners, joined many at the convention in condemning the prime minister.
Governor-General Sir William Deane referred to a 1937 United Nations' description of the forced transfer of children to another cultural group as a practice tantamount to the destruction of their group.
Deane said that the policy of assimilation had the stated intent of the full absorption of Aboriginal children into the wider Australian society, and "that ... is genocide".
Many of the commissioners who spoke at the convention said that taking evidence was a very emotional experience. Seven hundred and seventy-seven submissions were received, including 535 from indigenous individuals and groups, 49 from churches and seven from the government.
The report found that between one in three and one in 10 indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970, totalling as many as 100,000 people. It said that indigenous children, who were placed in institutions, missions or foster homes, were at risk of sexual and physical abuse, and that welfare officials failed to protect indigenous wards.
Even today indigenous children are six times more likely to be removed from their families and more than 20 times more likely to be removed for juvenile detention reasons.
The report states that reparations should include an acknowledgment of responsibility and apology from all institutions involved and that restitution, rehabilitation and monetary compensation be forthcoming.
Mick Dodson, one of the commissioners and whose mother was stolen, said, "Reparation is about much more than simply monetary compensation. It is a recognition of the great wrong that was done to generations of indigenous children and a requirement to compensate for that wrong."
According to Huggins, "Nothing will ever compensate these people. Nothing will ever bring back their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and cousins."
Wilson said that an added tragedy for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders removed from their families was that they were taught the same prejudices prevalent amongst wider society. "Genocide is not against an individual; it is the destruction of a culture", he said.