Gordon Brown to apologise to Child Migrants shipped to misery Down Under after Australian PM says 'sorry'

But… What about the agencies used and most willing to carry out such deeds of gross inhumanity?

Shipped Down Under

Between 1947 and 1967 up to 10,000 children were shipped to Australia. They were sent to populate a nation with what was called at the time "good white stock".
They were also the unwilling contestants in a competition between religious faiths to boost their numbers.
Parents weren't told the truth.
Their children lost their real identities and were told they were orphans going on holiday to a place where the sun always shines.
The policy was endorsed by Government of the day.
It was cheaper to send children to Australia than care for them on British soil.
It cost £5 a day to care in the UK but only 10 shillings in Australian institutions.

Hard labour

Those who suffered the harshest treatment were the boys sent to Bindoon, an isolated institution north of Perth.
The Catholic Christian Brothers ran it. Children built it.
British children were forced to do hard labour until they were 16-years-old.
Some of them had unimaginable abuse inflicted on them.
The practice continued until 1970 when it was stopped.

 

By Ian Drury and Richard Shears
Last updated at 6:35 PM on 16th November 2009

Gordon Brown is to apologise for Britain's ' disgraceful' role in sending more than 130,000 children to its former colonies.

Under the Child Migrants Program, poverty-stricken youngsters were compulsorily deported to Australia, Canada and other distant parts of the Empire.

Most children were wrongly told that their parents had died and that they would enjoy a 'better life' outside Britain, while the parents thought the children had been adopted in Britain.

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We're sorry: Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (left) comforts a victim after giving a national apology to the forgotten Australians and former child migrants at Parliament House ceremony in Canberra today

'The time is right': Gordon Brown has pledged that he also will make an official apology

But many were physically, psychologically and sexually abused, or ended up in institutions or as laborers on farms.

The Prime Minister has pledged to say sorry to the victims of the policy, which ended only 40 years ago, but the move has been condemned as coming too late.

Critics said he had been 'shamed' into it by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who today apologized for his country's role in the mistreatment and suffering of 500,000 people held in orphanages and children's homes between 1930 and 1970.

That includes 7,000 child migrants from Britain who still live in Australia.

'We are sorry,' Mr. Rudd said at a ceremony in Parliament House in Canberra today

'Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care. Sorry for the tragedy - the absolute tragedy - of childhoods lost.

'Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused.'

The programs, which ended 40 years ago, were intended to provide the children with a new start - and the Empire with a supply of sturdy white workers.

But many children ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused, or were sent to work as farm laborers.

Closure: Two women comfort one another as they listen to Mr Rudd's emotional apology in Canberra today

Therese Rein (top), wife of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, watches as an emotional woman waves the Australian flag, during Mr. Rudd's apology speech

Mr. Rudd also apologised to the 'forgotten Australians' - children who suffered in state care during the last century.

According to a 2004 Australian Senate report, more than 500,000 children were placed in foster homes, orphanages and other institutions during the 20th century. Many were emotionally, physically and sexually abused in state care.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227961/Gordon-Brown-says-time-right-apologise-UKs-role-Child-Migrants-programme.html#ixzz0XdDH8cRf

This report was compiled by The Daily Mail and BBC.