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Stolen Generations
Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

Publisher:  Wikipedia
Resource Type:  Article

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 and 1969, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s. Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales.

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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:

I was requested to attend at the Sunshine Welfare Offices, where they formerly (sic) discharged me from State ward ship. It took the Senior Welfare Officer a mere 20 minutes to come clean, and tell me everything that my heart had always wanted to know...that I was of "Aboriginal descent", that I had a Natural mother, father, three brothers and a sister, who were alive...He placed in front of me 368 pages of my file, together with letters, photos and birthday cards. He informed me that my surname would change back to my Mother's maiden name of Angus.

The Bringing Them Home report condemned the policy of disconnecting children from their "cultural heritage". One witness said to the commission:

I've got everything that could be reasonably expected: a good home environment, education, stuff like that, but that's all material stuff. It's all the non-material stuff that I didn't have — the lineage… You know, you've just come out of nowhere; there you are.

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