Apology for kids shipped from Britain to colonies

Published – Nov 16 2009 08:21AM EST

By ROD McGUIRK and JILL LAWLESS – Associated Press Writers

Britain and Australia are saying sorry to thousands of British children who were promised a better life overseas, only to suffer abuse and neglect thousands of miles from home. The British government said Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologize for 20th-century child migrant programs that saw thousands of poor British children sent to Australia, Canada and other former colonies until the 1960s. Many ended up in institutions or were sent to work as farm laborers.

CANBERRA, Australia— Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a historic apology Monday to thousands of impoverished British children shipped to Australia with the promise of a better life. But his government ruled out paying compensation for the abuse and neglect that many suffered.

The British government has estimated 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad between 1618 and 1967, most from the late 19th century onward. After 1920, most of the children went to Australia through programs run by the government, religious groups and children’s charities.

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.

At a ceremony in the Australian capital of Canberra attended by tearful former child migrants, Rudd apologized for his country’s role in the migration and extended condolences to the 7,000 survivors of the program who still live in Australia.

“We are sorry,” 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.”

The apology comes one day after the British government said Prime Minister Gordon Brown would apologize for child migrant programs that sent children as young as 3 to Australia, Canada and other former colonies over three and a half centuries. The first group was sent to the Virginia Colony in 1618.

Rudd also apologized 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.

The Australian government has ruled out compensation, saying liability lay with state governments and churches that ran the institutions.

British High Commissioner Valerie Amos said her government had not yet addressed the compensation question.

Ian Thwaites, service manager of the Child Migrants Trust, which has advocated for child migrants in Australia for 22 years, said both the British and Australian governments were liable.

A transracial adoptee speaks out

Guatemalan babies being stolen:

Adopting doesn’t make you a hero:

Adopted: The Movie
http://www.adoptedthemovie.com/

Korean mothers protest adoption:

Dear Emily,

I am not sure how much you know, but you are adopted. I am sending this message out to God and the universe, hoping it will reach you. I am your mother, the woman who gave birth to you. I was promised an open adoption where we would have visits and a relationship. I have faced many barriers in attempting to reach you, and I will not give up. I am keeping a bogging journal for you and I hope you will be able to respond to my message.

http://emilykogod.wordpress.com

wkgu(1)jal(0)r

My dear daughter,

I read a story by a woman who had been adopted. She said that her mother wanted nothing to do with her until she was 18.

I hope hope hope!!! that you know how much I want to be in your life. That I’ve tried over and over, asking nicely to the people who are raising you, but they decline. They run away from me. Please don’t think I’m running away from you. I will not stop trying.

I love you. That is stronger than any of their fears.

The similarities between Maria Barragan’s story and the many stories told today about continued child trafficking is overlooked in our society today.

Maria Barragan was taken from one family, and given to another, whose political ties were opposite, supportive of the people in power. Her real parents held prisoner until they died, she was given away to another more complacent couple.

How are things similar?

-Maria’s parents were held in captivity until they died, and their infant placed in the hands of a couple.
True, most parents do not die, but in the BSE, babies were literally snatched from the arms of their mothers, against their will. Even today, women are coerced, lied to, and made to feel guilty in order to sign papers giving up their rights. Maternity homes still exist, a form of prison, ripping these babies away from their parents. Many hospitals are also this way.

- Maria Barrigan’s identity was hidden, her birth certificate was falsified, she was lied to, and her past concealed.
Today, people who are adopted in the US face the same problems. Birth certificates falsified, state documents changed hiding the identity of that individual, erasing all ties to their family.

- In both Argentina and the US, there is no protocol for uniting families and their lost children, instead it is being run by people and organizations for those who are directly related to having lost their family. States, adoption agencies and lawyers are pretty ineffective at reuniting people at their request.

Why is it that the current system in the US hides people’s identity? It is to protect themselves. The state, the lawyers, the agency workers who have done these unethical placements, who have lied, coerced, and deceived these families have caused a form of genocide to these families. All because of poverty, because of political persuasion, because they wanted to make a profit. All for the sake of putting dead trees and numbers into bank accounts.

For one, I’m glad that this story had a happy ending. Although Maria was unable to be raised by her family, she has been reunited with them.

Full Story

n a landmark decision, a court in Buenos Aires sentenced a former military officer and the adoptive parents of one of the country’s many babies “stolen” during the dictatorship to prison for concealing the child’s identity and falsifying adoption documents.

Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragán, 30, had brought charges against the three after discovering her true identity seven years ago. Ms Sampallo is one of hundreds of people who were snatched from their parents or born in captivity during the country’s dictatorship of 1976-83, but she was the first to face her adoptive parents in court.

Osvaldo Rivas, 65, and MarÍa Cristina Gómez Pinto, 60, her adoptive parents, were sentenced to eight and seven years in prison respectively. Enrique Berthier, a former army captain who handed Ms Sampallo over to the couple when she was a baby, received ten years.

“These are not my parents,” Ms Sampallo said at a press conference on Monday. “They are my kidnappers . . . there is no emotional bond that binds me to them. These are my parents,” she said, picking up photos of her biological parents.

Argentina’s military regime arrested Leonardo Sampallo and Mirta Barragán, suspected leftist dissidents, in December 1977. Soon after Ms Sampallo was born, her parents died in prison and the infant was given to Captain Berthier to pass on to another family, which hid her real identity.

Ms Sampallo learnt about her past from the human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They have found 88 people like Ms Sampallo, children of their own sons and daughters who “disappeared”.

The Argentine military imprisoned tens of thousands of people suspected of being subversives and killed as many as 30,000. The junta also decided to “rehabilitate” its enemies’ children by placing them with families that supported the dictatorship. Many of the children were given to the families of men who may have participated in the torture and deaths of their parents.

The Grandmothers say that up to 500 children were abducted by the military or were born in captivity. During the dictatorship the group kept note of women who suddenly appeared with babies without being pregnant, and began investigations that, with recent advances in DNA technology, have begun to get results. Cases involving abducted children have proved crucial to bringing the dictatorship’s architects and executioners to justice. An amnesty for military and police officers imposed by the first postdictatorship government did not include the theft of babies, jurists contended.

“My hope is that each conviction acts as a step toward building the truth,” said Victoria Donda, an MP and activist who was taken from her biological parents at birth and learnt of her real identity in 2003.

The Dirty War

— Approximately 30,000 Argentinians disappeared during the Dirty War, a campaign of violence and intimidation by a series of governments

— The collapse of the alliance between left and right factions in the Peronist movement is seen as the catalyst of the trouble. A paranoid conservative Argentinian group backed the army in taking extreme action to control the Left

— Most disappearances occurred under the military regimes that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983, after the overthrow of Isabel Perón by Jorge Rafael Videla, then head of Argentina’s army

— Democracy was swept away and the military became increasingly violent. It regarded a “cleansing” of Argentine society as necessary to the country’s survival

— Liberals, trade unionists, and others suspected of less than wholehearted support for the regime were rounded up. After their interrogation and murder, their bodies were never returned

Sources: desaparecidos.org ; nuncamas.org; National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons

I miss my daughter.
I think of her every day.
She is 11 now.
I wish I could see her, meet her, hug her.
Tell her I love her.
So many lies I had to uncover.
I want to know my daughter.
I pray that we find each other soon.

I have realized something. The more the abusive culture of our society forces us, or convinces us to use their language, the more of a prisoner we are to this abuser.

When thinking about Positive adoption language, there is the key, adoption is a part of that language. According to law, adoption can not be obtained by using fraud, coercion, or while the parents signing are under duress. Anything other, is not adoption, it is kidnapping (ie human trafficking). It doesn’t matter how many people are involved, lawyers, social workers, judges, it does not take away the fact, this is not adoption, this is kidnapping.

Obtaining a signature from a mother in a hospital, while medicated, is duress. Forcing signatures while a mother is pregnant, or just gave birth without having time to recover, is a duress time for her. Any woman who signs without knowing or understanding the consequences of her situation, without knowing the long term effects on herself or her child, or knowing her rights to keep this child and the supports available to her, is coersion.

When we buy into their system, we tell everyone our child has been illegally adopted, we look for adoption lawyers, family lawyers, custody lawyers. Perhaps this is our problem. Perhaps what we should be doing, is discarding their language, and saying what really happened, our child was stolen from us. What if we called 911 saying our child was stolen from us? What if we used the Missing Childrens hotline and the Amber alert? What if we filed charges against the people stealing our children? The lawyers, the social workers, the strangers.

Then we could start realizing, that adoption and kidnapping are two different things. Adoption is when a child truly has no home, and needs people to raise them. Adoption doesn’t have to mean hiding the family names, backgrounds, and information of the family. And, in many other countries, they do not do this. Secrecy in and of itself suggests illness, hiding, lies, corruption.

So, let us call it as it is, and not use the abusers language. Let’s see what happens when we stop using their language and empower ourselves with our own feelings and interpretations of our situations. Our children were kidnapped, and are being raised by strangers.