Remembering the Forgotten

Australia PM delivers emotional apology to Forgotten Australians

Australia PM delivers emotional apology to Forgotten Australians

Nearly two years ago, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in a historic act of symbolic national catharsis, apologised to the Stolen Generation of Aborigines.

Last Monday, 900 of the estimated 500,000 Forgotten Australians, now acknowledged as having been forgotten by parents and siblings and raised in Australia's notorious homes and institutions for orphaned and neglected children during the last century, gathered at the same venue as Rudd's earlier apology.

During the Depression years and between the two World Wars, many Australian parents, including married couples, abandoned their children in orphanages, while they looked for work. In addition, about 7,000 British children were sent to Australia and institutionalised.

The 'Forgotten children state wards, orphans, child migrants and other children brought up in state and church-run institutions (most of which closed in the late 1970s) during the last century in wretched living conditions and under puritanical rules, were later released into the community, hapless and alone, and expected to cope on their own.

PM Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said 'sorry' to them and former child migrants in the emotion-charged ceremony for the "abuse, exploitation and neglect they experienced in institutions and foster homes".

Some survivors heckled Rudd for compensation while many sobbed, stood and cheered as the Prime Minister said, "We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter in our nation's history.

Sorry: Australian PM Kevin Rudd speaks to victim John Hennessy after delivering an apology at Parliament House in Canberra and British orphans working in the fields near Sydney in 1953.

"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy of childhood lost."

Although Rudd paid no heed to the demand for compensation, he promised priority places for aged-care services and vowed to ensure "every" possible effort was made to protect the 30,000 children currently in state and federal territory care.

Turnbull shed tears as he recounted stories of children who were separated from their siblings and subjected to violence and mental and sexual abuse.

Urging people to speak out if they suspected children were abused, Rudd said, "You were failed by the system of care. For too long your stories were not believed when they should have been and for that, too, we apologise and we are sorry."

(Source: News and agency reports)