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Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families April 1997 back to content page / previous chapter / next chapter Part 2 Tracing the History Chapter 2: National Overview Chapter 3: New South Wales and the ACT Chapter 4: Victoria Chapter 5:…

A central function of HREOC is to undertake education programs that increase public awareness and generate discussion of human rights and anti-discrimination issues within Australia. HREOC’s legislative responsibilities are:

Within months of the `First Fleet' arrival at Sydney Cove in 1788 there was `open animosity' as Indigenous people protested against `the Europeans cutting down trees, taking their food and game, and driving them back into others' territories'. Bitter conflict followed as Aboriginal people engaged in `guerilla warfare - plundering crops, burning huts, and driving away stock' to be met by `punitive…

The general opinion of station people is that it is a mistake to take these children out of the bush. They say that the aboriginal mothers are fond of their children and in their own way look after them and provide for them and that when they grow up they are more easily absorbed and employed than those who have been taken out of their natural environment and removed to towns.

From 1835, when the European occupation of Victoria commenced, until the 1880s government policy was one of segregation of Indigenous people on reserves. These were mainly controlled by missions.

The colony of Moreton Bay was established as a penal outpost of New South Wales in 1825. Extreme violence accompanied the rapid expansion of European settlers, particularly in the north. This violence and the spread of introduced diseases resulted in a rapid decrease in the Indigenous population. Kidnapping Indigenous women and children for economic and sexual exploitation was common.

That's why I wanted the files brought down, so I could actually read it and find out why I was taken away and why these three here [siblings] were taken by [our] auntie ... Why didn't she take the lot of us instead of leaving two there? ... I'd like to get the files there and see why did these ones here go to the auntie and the other ones were fostered. Confidential evidence 161, Victoria.

Gain insights on human rights education and promotion from the 2003-2004 annual report.

Just as there are many homes, there are many journeys home. Each one of us will have a different journey from anyone else. The journey home is mostly ongoing and in some ways never completed. It is a process of discovery and recovery, it is a process of (re)building relationships which have been disrupted, or broken or never allowed to begin because of separation (Link-Up (NSW) submission 186).