@am*3 wrote:
@icyfroth wrote:
No we are talking about people who enter Australia with all sorts of hopes and aspirations and under all kinds of situations and go through all sorts of hardships to eventually settle here to make a better life for themselves.
We're crying about a mother deprived of her child in entering this country illegally when so many english children were illegally deprived of their mothers in coming here.
No one disagrees with that. Kevin Rudd included them in his 'Sorry' speech.
But they were not asylum seekers nor refugees. Nor do they have anything to do with treatment of a family who arrived by boat and had conditions placed on them re visiting their newborn baby in hospital.
There is another thread here started recently, where the UK 'orphans' were brought up, again in a refugee/asylum thread. Not the same topic at all...same comments in that thread.
orphans???????????Many were taken (kept away) from their parents and their parents from them
.Apologies have been made to them and their parents
There could be similarities depending on how you look at it and depending on how our our Country treats Asylum seekers in the future.
"Child Migrants Programme"
An estimated 150,000 British children were sent to overseas colonies and countries in the commonwealth such as Australia. This practice was in effect from the beginning of the nineteenth century until 1967. Many of these children were sent to orphanages, foster homes and institutions run by religious orders, where they were used as a free source of labor and many were sexually, physically and emotionally abused and neglected.
These children were classified as orphans although most were not. The prime consideration was money as it was cheaper to care for children in commonwealth countries than it was in the United Kingdom. This program was carried out with the complicity of the Methodist Church, the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army among others. At least 10,000 children some as young as 3 were shipped to Australia after World War II, most to join the ranks of the “Forgotten Australians”, the term given for those who experienced care in foster homes and institutions in the 20th century.
Among these Forgotten Australians were members of the “Stolen Generation”, the children of Australian Aborigines, forcibly removed from their homes and raised in white institutions. In 2008 Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd apologized to the approximately 500,000 “forgotten Australians” and in 2010 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a similar apology to those who were victimized by the Child Migrants Programme. But, is an apology enough for the unerasable damaged caused to thousands of victims?...
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delivered a national apology to victims of forced adoption practices that were in place in Australia from the late 1950s to the 1970s.
More than 800 people affected by forced adoptions gathered at the Great Hall in Canberra for the historic occasion.
"Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering," she said.
"We acknowledge the profound effects of these policies and practices on fathers and we recognise the hurt these actions caused to brothers and sisters, grandparents, partners and extended family members.
"We deplore the shameful practices that denied you, the mothers, your fundamental rights and responsibilities to love and care for your children.
"You were not legally or socially acknowledged as their mothers and you yourselves were deprived of care and support.
Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.
Julia Gillard
"We say sorry to you, the mothers, who were denied knowledge of your rights, which meant you could not provide informed consent.
"You were given false assurances. You were forced to endure the coercion and brutality of practices that were unethical, dishonest and in many cases illegal."
we don't forget these parents and children by making sure history isn't repeated.
