UK to Apologize for Forced Child Migration Policy

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LONDON, England - The British government announced on Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would issue an apology in 2010 for over three and a half centuries of child migrant programs which sent boys and girls from struggling families to Australia, Canada, and other former colonies. Many of these children were sent to government and religious institutions where they were often physically or sexually abused, or were sent to work on farms as laborers.

The British announcement came after the Australian government announced that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would issue a national apology for Australia's participation in the child migrant programs on Monday. Today, as he issued the apology, Rudd said that Australia was "sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation, and the cold absence of tenderness of care" experienced by the migrant children.

 
Photo: A 1953 photo released by the National Archives of Australia showing British children working in a garden at Melrose House near Parrmatta, Australia. [Source: AP/National Archives of Australia]

The program dates from 1618, when a group of children were first sent to the Virginia Colony, and was only abandoned in 1967. The British government estimates that roughly 150,000 British children, some as young as three years-old, were separated from their families and forced to migrate during this span of time.

After 1920, most of the children were sent to Australia. A 2001 Australian report stated that up to 30,000 children from Britain and Malta were taken from unmarried mothers or impoverished families and were sent alone to Australia as migrants during the twentieth century. Many of the children were told that they were orphans, and siblings were commonly split up once they arrived in Australia.

Sandra Anker, sent to Australia at the age of six in 1950, said that the British government has "a lot to answer for." She told the BBC:

"We've suffered all our lives...For the government of England to say sorry to us, it makes it right - even if it's late, it's better than not at all."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Rod Braydon, sixty five years-old, said that he was six years old when he was raped by a Salvation Army officer during his first night in a Melbourne boys' home. He said:

"When we reported this as kids, we were flogged to within an inch of our lives, locked up in dungeons and isolations cells."

Braydon has received a cash settlement from the Salvation Army and has sued the Victoria state government.

Some of the reasoning behind the forced migration was to prevent poor children from burdening the British state, and to supply colonies with potential workers. A 1998 British parliamentary inquiry also noted that racism played a role in the migrant programs, as the importation of "good white stock" was seen as a desirable policy objective in the growing British Colonies.

British Children's Secretary Ed Balls said that the program was "a stain on our society," and that an apology would be symbolically very important. He said:

"I think it is important that we say to the children who are now adults and older people and to their offspring that this is something that we look back on in shame."

For more information, please see:

NY TImes - Australian Leader Apologizes for Child Migrants - 16 November 2009

The Guardian - Brown to apologise to care home children sent to Australia and Canada - 16 November 2009

AP - Apology for kids shipped from Britain to colonies - 15 November 2009

Comments

[Bob kalangi]

Actually, in this instance we do have probably a better tracking system than was the instance in Canada. Because this is a dairy cow, they're all individually tagged.

[Michael]

I am a former child migrant, sent from England to Australia in 1953 - I was 8 years of age.

I suffered badly for many years as a result of abuse, deprivation etc.

Sadly, many former child migrants (from my experience) don't really come to terms with their history.

Fortunately through the grace of God & years of counselling, I made a complete recovery.
God bless you
Michael

[Carrien300]

i think the behaviour of the british and co conspiring countries is disgraceful, i cant believe that we acted in such a callous way, we must look back on this was utter shame, people should not be looked down on no matter HOW they came into the world, they are still born a person!!!