Похищенные поколения: насильственная ассимиляция австралийских аборигенов.

Indigenous Australian children forcibly acculturated into White Australian society

The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed race children were still being taken into the 1970s. Official government estimates are that in certain regions between one in ten and one in three Indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.

Numerous 19th and early 20th century contemporaneous documents indicate that the policy of removing mixed race Aboriginal children from their mothers related to an assumption that the Aboriginal peoples were dying off. Given their catastrophic population decline after white contact, whites assumed that the full blood tribal Aboriginal population would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to extinction. The idea expressed by A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia, and others as late as 1930 was that mixed race children could be trained to work in white society, and over generations would marry white and be assimilated into the society. Some European Australians considered any proliferation of mixed descent children (labelled "half castes", "crossbreeds", "quadroons", and "octoroons", The Northern Territory Chief Protector of Aborigines, Dr. Cecil Cook, argued that "everything necessary [must be done] to convert the half caste into a white citizen".

A 2019 study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) found that children living in households with members of the Stolen Generations are more likely "to experience a range of adverse outcomes", including poor health, especially mental health, missing school and living in poverty. There are high incidences of anxiety, depression, PTSD and suicide, along with alcohol abuse, among the Stolen Generations, with this resulting in unstable parenting and family situations.

Compensation claims have been heard by the NSW Supreme Court's Court of Appeal in Williams v The Minister Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 and New South Wales [2000] NSWCA 255 and the Australian Federal Court in Cubillo v Commonwealth of Australia [2000] FCA 1084. In Williams, an individual (rather than a group of plaintiffs) made claims in negligence arising from having been placed under the control of the Aborigines Welfare Board pursuant to s 7(2) of the Aborigines Welfare Act 1909 shortly after her birth, and was placed by the Board with the United Aborigines Mission at its Aborigines Children Home at Bomaderry near Nowra, NSW. The trial judge found that there was no duty of care and therefore that an action in negligence could not succeed. This was upheld by the NSW Court of Appeal in 2000. In relation to whether the action in NSW courts was limited by the passage of time, the Court of Appeal, reversing Studert J, extended the limitation period for the non equitable claims by about three decades pursuant to s 60G of the Limitation Act 1969 (Williams v Minister, Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (1994) 35 NSWLR 497). Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 2008 Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples was not expected to have any legal effect on claims for compensation in NSW. New South Wales set up a scheme running from 1 July 2017 until 30 June 2022, enabling survivors to claim compensation. Its funding also allows for a healing fund, allocating grants to healing centres, memorials and keeping places, as well as a separate fund to help fund Stolen Generations members' funerals. There were estimated to be between 700 and 1,300 survivors in NSW in 2017.

In June 1998, Bruce Trevorrow, a Ngarrindjeri man, sued the South Australian Government for pain and suffering suffered as a result of his being removed from his parents when he was a baby. On 1 August 2007, aged 50, Trevorrow became the first member of the Stolen Generations to be awarded compensation by a court of law, when it awarded him The SA government appealed in February 2008, but lost their appeal in March 2010, but Trevorrow had died only a few months after they lodged the appeal.

In October 2006 the Tasmanian Government allocated a package of to fund various reconciliation measures, including compensation for affected people, or their descendants if no longer living, under the Stolen Generation of Aboriginal Children Act 2006. In a first for the country, 106 people were found to qualify for the payments. It is thought that around 12000 people will be eligible to access the payments and programs. The reparations package was raised as a key issue at the first meeting of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria in 2020, and Andrews acknowledged that it was long overdue. Applications open on 31 March 2022.

The word "stolen" is used here to refer to the Aboriginal children having been taken away from their families. It has been in use for this since the early 20th century. For instance, Patrick McGarry, a member of the Parliament of New South Wales, objected to the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 which authorised the Aborigines' Protection Board to remove Aboriginal children from their parents without having to establish cause. McGarry described the policy as "steal[ing] the child away from its parents". In 1924, the Adelaide Sun wrote: "The word 'stole' may sound a bit far fetched but by the time we have told the story of the heart broken Aboriginal mother we are sure the word will not be considered out of place." In most jurisdictions, Indigenous Australians were put under the authority of a Protector, effectively being made wards of the State. The protection was done through each jurisdiction's Aboriginal Protection Board; in Victoria and Western Australia these boards were also responsible for applying what were known as Half Caste Acts. More recent usage has developed since Peter Read's publication of The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 (1981), which examined the history of these government actions. heightened awareness of the Stolen Generations. The acceptance of the term in Australia is illustrated by the 2008 formal apology to the Stolen Generations, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and passed by both houses of the Parliament of Australia. Previous apologies had been offered by State and Territory governments in the period 1997–2001. Some have objected to the use of the term "Stolen Generations". Former Prime Minister John Howard did not believe the government should apologise to the Australian Aboriginal peoples. Then Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs John Herron disputed usage of the term in April 2000. Others who disputed the use of the term include Peter Howson, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs from 1971 to 1972, and Keith Windschuttle, an historian who argues that some of the abuses towards Australian Aboriginal peoples have been exaggerated and in some cases invented. Many historians argue against these denials, including to Windschuttle in particular. Anthropologist Ron Brunton also criticised the proceedings on the basis that there was no cross examination of those giving their testimonies or critical examination of the factual basis of the testimony. The Bringing Them Home report provided extensive details about the removal programs and their effects. Sir Ronald Wilson, former President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and a Commissioner on the Inquiry, stated that "when it comes to the credibility of those stories, there is ample credibility, not from the cross examination of the children themselves, but from the governments whose laws, practices and policies enabled these forced removals to take place. We had the support of every State government; they came to the Inquiry, came with lever arch files setting out the laws from the earliest days right up to the end of the assimilation policy, that is up to the 1970s and more importantly, senior government officers attended. In every case, these senior officers acknowledged that there was a lot of cruelty in the application of those laws and policies." Herron apologised for the "understandable offence taken by some people" as a result of his comments, although he refused to alter the report as it had been tabled. Historian Peter Read referred to the children affected as the "Stolen Generations". Another historian, Robert Manne, defended that terminology, making the analogy that other people refer to the "generation that lost their lives in the First World War" without meaning over 50 per cent of the young people at the time; rather, people use that phrasing as a metaphor for a collective experience. Similarly, he believes, some of the Aboriginal community use the term to describe their collective suffering.

There is ongoing contention among politicians, commentators, and historical, political, and legal experts as to whether the forced removals of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children that occurred during the Stolen Generations can be accurately described as genocidal acts, and particularly whether they meet the definition of genocide in article II (e) of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. While it is generally not disputed that these forced removals occurred, the contention surrounds whether they were enacted with the intention of destroying the Indigenous people of Australia. There is further contention as to whether those responsible for the Stolen Generations should be criminally liable for genocide. In response to a submission by the National Aboriginal and Islander Legal Services Secretariat to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Commissioner Johnston considered whether the policies and practices of the Australian Governments pertinent to the Stolen Generations constituted a breach of the Convention but concluded that "[i]t is not my function to interpret the Convention or to decide whether it has been breached, particularly since the policies involved were modified in 1962 somewhat and abandoned by 1970". The Bringing Them Home report concluded that: The Australian practice of Indigenous child removal involved both systematic racial discrimination and genocide as defined by international law. Yet it continued to be practised as official policy long after being clearly prohibited by treaties to which Australia had voluntarily subscribed. However, in the subsequent case of Kruger v Commonwealth, the High Court judges rejected the claim of the plaintiffs that the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 authorised genocide as defined by the Convention and ruled that there was no legislation to implement the Convention under Australian municipal law at the time. One of the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report was that 'the Commonwealth legislate to implement the Genocide Convention with full domestic effect'. While genocide has been a crime under international law since the commencement of the Convention in 1951, in accordance with Section 51(xxix) of the Australian Constitution, it has only been a crime under Australian law since the commencement of the International Criminal Court (Consequential Amendments) Act 2002, and so the Stolen Generations cannot be considered genocide under Australian law because the Act is not retrospective. In its twelfth report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Australian Government argued that the removal policies and programs did not constitute a breach of the Convention. In 1997, Sir Ronald Wilson, then President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, commissioner of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, and co author of the Bringing Them Home report, argued that the policies resulting in the Stolen Generations constitute attempted genocide: he stated, "It clearly was attempted genocide. It was believed that the Aboriginal people would die out." Manne argues that the expressed views of government bureaucrats, such as A. O. Neville, to assimilate the mixed race children into the white population by means of "breeding out the colour", and therefore eventually resulting in the full bloods being "forgotten", bore strong similarities to the racial views of the Nazis in 1930s Nazi Germany. Manne points out that, though the term "genocide" had not yet entered the English language, the policies of Neville and others were termed by some contemporaries as the "die out" or "breed out" policy, giving an indication of their proposed intent. He also states that academics "generally acknowledge" that the authors of the Bringing Them Home report were wrong to argue that Australian authorities had committed genocide by removing indigenous children from their families. Social assimilation has never been regarded in law as equivalent to genocide. Though historian Paul Bartrop rejects the use of the word genocide to describe Australian colonial history in general, he does believe that it applies to describing the Stolen Generations. Bartrop and US scholar Samuel Totten together wrote the Dictionary of Genocide, for which Bartrop wrote the entry on Australia. He said he used as the benchmark for usage of the term genocide the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which is also cited in the Bringing Them Home report. In 2006, Australian historian Patrick Wolfe wrote:To take an example from genocide's definitional core, Article II (d) of the UN Convention on Genocide, which seems to have been relatively overlooked in Australian discussions, includes among the acts that constitute genocide (assuming they are committed with intent to destroy a target group in whole or in part) the imposition of "measures intended to prevent births within the group." Given that the Australian practice of abducting Aboriginal children, assuming its "success", would bring about a situation in which second generation offspring were born into a group that was different from the one from which the child/parent had originally been abducted, there is abundant evidence of genocide being practised in post war Australia on the basis of Article II (d) alone. In 2008, Australian historian Inga Clendinnen suggested that the term genocide rests on the "question of intentionality", saying: "There's not much doubt, with great murderous performances that were typically called genocide, that they were deliberate and intentional. Beyond that, it always gets very murky." featured Bob Randall. He is an elder of the Yankunytjatjara people and one of the listed traditional owners of Uluru. He was taken away from his mother as a child, living at the government reservation until he was 20, and working at various jobs, including as a carpenter, stockman, and crocodile hunter. He helped establish the Adelaide Community College and has lectured on Aboriginal cultures. He served as the director of the Northern Australia Legal Aid Service and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander centres at the Australian National University, University of Canberra, and University of Wollongong. Episode 5, "Unhealthy Government Experiment", of the 1998 SBS documentary television series First Australians concerns the Stolen Generations in Western Australia.

The Australian film Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), directed by Phillip Noyce, was loosely based on the book Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It concerns the author's mother and two other mixed race Aboriginal girls who ran away from Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, and returned to their Aboriginal families. In a subsequent interview with the ABC, Doris recalled her removal in 1931 from her mother at age three or four, and subsequent rearing at the settlement. She was not reunited with her mother until she was 25; all those years, she believed that her mother had given her away. When the two women were reunited, Doris was no longer able to speak her native language and had been taught to regard Indigenous culture as evil. Baz Luhrmann's 2008 film Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, deals with the Stolen Generations.

Stolen (1998) is a play by Australian playwright Jane Harrison. It tells the story of five fictional Aboriginal people by the names of Sandy, Ruby, Jimmy, Anne, and Shirley who dealt with the issues for forceful removal by Australian governments. The Indigenous opera Pecan Summer (2010) by Deborah Cheetham, which premiered in Mooroopna, is set at Federation Square, in Melbourne, on the day of Kevin Rudd's apology, and quotes some of his words.

Trauma suffered as a result of children being separated from their families and forced to adopt a culture foreign to them is ongoing and passed down through generations. The Healing Foundation is a government funded body The head office is in Canberra, with branches in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and on the Torres Strait Islands. as of 2020 the Foundation had provided funding for more than 175 community organisations to develop and run healing projects, "to address the ongoing trauma caused by actions like the forced removal of children from their families". It also conducts research into Indigenous healing. The Marumali Program was designed and established by Stolen Generations survivor Lorraine Peeters, starting with her presentation of the model she had created, the "Marumali Journey of Healing Model", to a conference of mental health professionals at a conference in Sydney in 1999. Her body of work was copyrighted and subsequently circulated to and used by many organisations to help survivors to heal from specific types of trauma suffered as a result of the removals. Peeters then developed the Marumali Program to train Indigenous counsellors to use her model. as of June 2020, she and her daughter continue to give workshops, both in the community and in prisons. Marumali is a Gamilaroi word meaning "to put back together", and she says it relates to the ultimate goal of reconnecting with what has been lost. She continues to advise the Healing Foundation.