The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
It's estimated that as many as 1 in 3 Indigenous children were taken between 1910 and the 1970s, affecting most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. This all took place under past Australian Government policies.
Why were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children taken from their families? The forcible removal of First Nations children from their families was based on assimilation policies, which claimed that the lives of First Nations people would be improved if they became part of white society.
By 1969, all states had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'.
These children were taken by the police; from their homes; on their way to or from school. They were placed in over 480 institutions, adopted or fostered by non-Indigenous people and often subjected to abuse.
It's a story that has been repeated for generations of Aboriginal families in Australia, and it's still happening today. In 2019/20, 952 Aboriginal children across NSW were removed from their families, a 2.6% increase on the year prior.
The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
For example, British colonialism with its eugenic character did not only export white “stock” to extend the racial reach of Empire, it also stole aboriginal children and placed them in white Christian families in a process of cultural genocide.
Since colonisation, numerous government laws, policies and practices resulted in the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities across Australia.
It is estimated some 16,000 on-reserve children were removed from their homes by Ontario's child welfare services between 1965, when the federal government signed an agreement with the province to extend its welfare programs to reserves and 1984, when the provincial government incorporated protections regarding ...
On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations whose lives had been blighted by past government policies of forced child removal and assimilation.
Research by the TRC found that thousands of Indigenous children sent to residential schools never made it home. Physical and sexual abuse led some to run away. Others died of disease or by accident amid neglect.
In Australia, on average, 48 young people under the age of 18 go missing every day. While First Nations young people make up less than 6% of the Australian population under the age of 18, they comprise around 20% of missing children.
In an analysis by Guardian Australia based on the data, Aboriginal deaths were estimated to be 27 to 33 times higher than coloniser deaths. Between 11,000 and 14,000 Aboriginal people died, compared with only 399 to 440 colonisers.
In Australia, an estimated 20,000 children are reported missing every year. Australian Federal Police, National Coordination Centre.
In addition, the Criminal Record Discrimination Project also identified that up until 1989, members of the Stolen Generation and many non-Aboriginal Victorians were given criminal records as children when they were forcibly taken from their families and placed into state care.
More than 27,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years and over in 2018–19 were survivors of the Stolen Generations, according to new estimates in a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
These children were exploited. They had to work from as early as 6am to 10pm, seven days a week. As many as 20% were abused, physically and mentally, during these years.
It also found 79 per cent, about 17,000 children, lived permanently away from their birth parents, with less than 15 per cent being reunified with their families. SNAICC is the national peak body for First Nations children.
Slavery was sanctioned by Australian law
Legislation facilitated the enslavement of Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
These children were forcibly removed from their families and communities through race-based policies set up by both State and Federal Governments. They were either put in to homes, adopted or fostered out to non-Indigenous families.
Children between the ages of 4-16 attended Indian residential school. It is estimated that over 150,000 Indian, Inuit, and Métis children attended Indian residential school.
After European settlers arrived in 1788, thousand of aborigines died from diseases; colonists systematically killed many others. At first contact, there were over 250,000 aborigines in Australia. The massacres ended in the 1920 leaving no more than 60,000.
In NSW, under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board had wide ranging control over the lives of Aboriginal people, including the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families under a policy of 'assimilation'.
Sixteen Indigenous people died in custody in 2021 – double the previous record in NSW, which was eight deaths in 1998.