LETTER FROM SYDNEY
They remained in the Australian collective memory as the “stolen generations”. Between 1910 and 1970, authorities forcibly removed tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their parents and placed them in institutions or with white foster families as part of official assimilation policies. A “taint in the history of our nation”, lamented former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008. Half a century later, for other reasons, First Peoples continue to see their children removed at an alarming rate by child welfare services. Services which, in New South Wales in particular, are the subject of strong criticism.
On May 2, the population of this state discovered yet more dysfunctions in the interim report published by the Advocate for Children and Young People, an independent administrative authority which investigated emergency accommodation in hotels and other structures. local temporary reception. In this document, minors testified to having been abandoned to their own devices by marginalized people or to having been sexually assaulted. One of them said he felt like “a dog in a shelter, moving from one cage to another”. A few days earlier, a children’s court had heard the edifying story of a six-year-old indigenous boy. Placed for half of his short life, the man to whom the courts gave the pseudonym Ray changed his place of residence up to 26 times in one year, was deprived of dental care despite decayed teeth and was found dead. worm-infested intestine.
“We have started working to repair the system, but we still have a long way to go”, defended the state’s family affairs minister, Kate Washington, on May 2. For Aboriginal populations, these reforms are all the more essential as their children, who only account for 4.5% of the minor population of New South Wales, represented 47% of young people placed under protection in 2023. A figure which has continued to increase over the last decade and which constitutes a major source of concern for these communities.
“Excessive surveillance perpetuating stereotypes”
“Today, we are no longer in this logic of assimilation of the stolen generations, but we see that the first peoples are subject to increased surveillance by child protection systems, health systems, education and other government systems which together exert excessive surveillance, perpetuating stereotypes and enforcing racial bias towards Aboriginal families”denounces BJ Newton, researcher at the University of New South Wales and head of the Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home project on the reunification of indigenous families, interviewed by The world.
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