Australia reparations for Aboriginal children taken from relatives

Aboriginal people and residents of the Torres Strait who were taken from their families as children will receive compensation of AUD 75,000 (EUR 47,000) per person. The Australian government has allocated a total of 237 million euros for reparations to the victims. Almost 25 years ago, a report was published urging the Australian government to come up with compensation.

The victims belong to the so-called ‘stolen generations’. Approximately 100,000 children were taken from their families between 1910 and 1970 by the government, welfare organizations and the Church and placed with white families so that they would assimilate. In 2008 the Australian government apologized for this. Money was made available for aid programs, but no compensation was forthcoming.

Economic plan

The compensation is intended for victims who are still alive, relatives are not eligible. Part of the compensation is also that the victims can tell their story confidentially to a government official. They can also be offered personal apologies in a conversation or in writing.

The Australian government is making more money available to improve the position of Indigenous people in society. The socio-economic status of many of them is poor. In total, this concerns an amount of 1 billion Australian dollars. For example, $250 million will go to Aboriginal health organizations and $75 million will be invested in secondary education in remote locations.

mass graves

Similar practices took place in other countries. In Canada, native children in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were evicted from home en masse and sent to boarding schools. There they had to leave their language and culture behind. Mass graves containing indigenous children have recently been discovered at several of these boarding schools.

The finds sparked outrage in Canada. An investigation is also underway in America. That country had a similar system of boarding schools for indigenous children.

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