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Australia 'Sorry' For Child Abuse
Source: BBC NEWS published: 2009/11/16 01:09:38 GMT
Australian PM Kevin Rudd has apologized to the hundreds of thousands of people, some British migrants, who were abused or neglected in state care as children. Mr. Rudd said he was "deeply sorry" for the pain caused to the children and their extended families. He said he hoped the national apology would help to "heal the pain" and be a turning point in Australian history. Some wept openly and held each other as Mr. Rudd shared stories of survivors he had spoken with children who were beaten with belt buckles or sexually violated. Kevin Rudd also offered an apology to child migrants taken from the UK to Australia after the war, often without their parents' consent.
"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care."
"Let us resolve this day that this national apology becomes a turning point in our nation's story," he said. "A turning point for governments... to do all in our power to never allow this to happen again."
Mr. Rudd said the government would work to ensure that such a tragedy would never happen again. Mr. Rudd said it was important to acknowledge the past in order to be able to move forward as a nation. "The truth is, this is an ugly story," Mr. Rudd told Parliament House. The truth is great evil has been done."
Speaking directly to the gathering, he said: "It is my hope that from today, you will be called the 'remembered Australians'."
Under the Child Migrants Program, which ended just 40 years ago, the UK sent poor children to a "better life" in Australia, Canada and elsewhere. As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were wrongly told that their parents were dead. Many parents did not know their children, aged as young as three, had been sent to Australia.
Care agencies worked with the government to send disadvantaged children to a rosy future and supply what was deemed "good white stock" to a former colony. In many cases they were educated only for farm work, and suffered cruelty and hardship including physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
The founder of the Child Migrants Trust, Margaret Humphreys has traveled from the UK to Canberra for Mr. Rudd's apology. She said: "The trust has campaigned for over 20 years for this kind and degree of recognition. For child migrants, of course, it has been all their lives and for their families. "This is a moment - a significant moment - in the history of child migration. The recognition is vital if people are to recover."
Some 500,000 "forgotten Australians" were abused or neglected in orphanages and children's homes from 1930 to 1970.
