Children are the most vulnerable members of society, and as such, have been victimized and exploited across time. Children have also, across time and especially during the 20th century, been institutionalized, taken away from their mothers, adopted illegally, etc. Below are some videos where British and Australian politicians are apologizing officially, which is not much and cannot erase or heal years of loss and pain, but at least it is one small step towards the recognition of wrong and unethical practices and it also contributes to breaking social denial and secrecy surrounding practices like this around the world. At least some governments have been forced by survivors’ activism and society’s demand to take responsibility for dark chapters in their history and work towards restoring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io46Z-ADKZ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNi3LmlRCZ8
Gordon Brown’s apology in 2010 to the children immigrants that were sent to Australia, a practice that lasted over 40 years right up until the 1960s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBpcN6JYFo
Photographs of child immigrants that were sent from Britain to Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bt12r3H3oQ
Exhibition at the Maritime Museum in Sydney reveals the harrowing experiences that child immigrants that were shipped from Britain to Australia often suffered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3znXsldzMRo
Kevin Rudd apologizes to the 500, 000 Forgotten Australians and their families
“We come together today to offer our nation’s apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent, that we are sorry,” Mr Rudd said.
“Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. 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.”
Mr Rudd spoke specifically about the experiences of thousands of British children taken from their families and sent to Australia.
“We acknowledge in particular the children shipped to Australia as child migrants, robbed of your families, robbed of your homelands, regarded, not as innocent children, but sources of child labour,” he said.
“To those who were told they were orphans but were taken here without their parents consent, we acknowledge the lies you were told, the lies told to your mothers and fathers and the pain the lies caused for a life time.
“To those of you separated on the dockside from your brothers and sisters, taken alone and unprotected to the most remote parts of a foreign land, we acknowledge today that the laws of our nation failed you.
“And for this we are deeply sorry.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVbokTpYeg
The Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard delivers a national apology to victims of forced adoption in 2013