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I have spent a lot of time this past year convincing people from all walks of life that the challenges facing Indigenous peoples in this country are not insurmountable.

This report is a tribute to the strength and struggles of many thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected by forcible removal. We acknowledge the hardships they endured and the sacrifices they made. We remember and lament all the children who will never come home.

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Australian Parliament, made a historic and long overdue national Apology to the Stolen Generations. With eloquence and emotion, Prime Minister Rudd said what so many Australians have wanted to say, and what so many Indigenous peoples have needed to hear:

The Australian Human Rights Commission would like to thank all the people who generously contributed their stories, artwork, poetry and time to make this publication possible; Jo Ritale and Angelo at the State Library of Queensland and the communities of Cherbourg, Mapoon Mission,  Monamona and Mornington Island for giving us permission to reproduce photographs from the State…

‘Finding my Family’, Rooth Wilay Robertson My painting depicts each family member, with all the different skin colours, as puzzle pieces finally all joined up to complete our story.

You can read the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, from April 1997.

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 / next page Appendices Appendix 1.1 New South Wales Appendix 1.2 Australian Capital Territory Appendix 2 Victoria Appendix 3 Queensland Appendix 4 Tasmania Appendix 5…

Hobart December 4,7,8 Flinders Island December 4-5 Cape Barren Island December 4-5 Wybalenna December 6 Bringing them Home Launceston December 11,13 Burnie December 12

Indigenous Inquiry Commissioners Annette Peardon, Marjorie Thorpe, Dr Maryanne Bin Salik, Sadie Canning, Olive Knight, Kathy Mills, Anne Louis, Laurel Williams, Jackie Huggins, Josephine Ptero-David and Professor Marcia Langton and Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner John Briton assisted with hearings and in the development of the report and its recommendations. They provided strong…

There were a lot of families on the outside who were saying my daughter hasn't come home, my son hasn't come home. You had a lot of families still fighting and then you had the bloody welfare saying to these families, `We're not doing what was done in the sixties'. Bomaderry Home was left open as a big secret by the government and the welfare. And it must have been one of the best kept secrets…

2. The obligation to respect and to ensure respect for human rights and humanitarian law includes the duty: to prevent violations, to investigate violations, to take appropriate action against the violators, and to afford remedies and reparation to victims. Particular attention must be paid to the prevention of gross violations of human rights and to the duty to prosecute and punish perpetrators…

Family law plays a role in the `placement and care' of Indigenous children when parenting disputes come before the Family Court of Australia (except in WA where the State Family Court deals with all family law matters) or those lower courts, presided over by magistrates, which have power to deal with them. The parents do not have to be married: children born outside marriage are treated in the…

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Anglican Church Social Responsibilities Commission Anonymous Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc.

An Act `to provide for the subdivision of the Cape Barren Island reserve and for occupation of portion thereof by the descendants of Aboriginal natives'.

The forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families occurred during two periods in Tasmania. The first commenced with the European occupation of Van Dieman's Land (as Tasmania was called until 1856) in 1803 and lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. The second commenced in the 1930s with the forcible removal of Indigenous children from Cape Barren Island under general…

Every morning our people would crush charcoal and mix that with animal fat and smother that all over us, so that when the police came they could only see black children in the distance. We were told always to be on the alert and, if white people came, to run into the bush or run and stand behind the trees as stiff as a poker, or else hide behind logs or run into culverts and hide. Often the white…