Search results

Following the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families and the release of the report Bringing them home several questions have been frequently asked and statements made about the Inquiry’s findings and recommendations.

Note: This overview is based primarily on the Bringing them home report and provides a background to the policies and practices that authorised the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. It is not intended to be used as a comprehensive historical document.

This executive summary is divided into two parts. Part A sets out the major findings and recommendations of the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention (the Inquiry). Part B provides a chapter summary of the Inquiry's report: A last resort?

My grandmother, Rebecca, was born around 1890. She lived with her tribal people, parents and relations around the Kempsey area. Rebecca was the youngest of a big family. One day some religious people came, they thought she was a pretty little girl. She was a full blood aborigine about five years old. Anyway those people took her to live with them.

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…

Commissioners: DR SEV OZDOWSKI, Human Rights Commissioner MRS ROBIN SULLIVAN, Queensland Children's Commissioner PROFESSOR TRANG THOMAS, Professor of Psychology, Melbourne Institute of Technology MS VANESSA LESNIE, Secretary to the Inquiry

I want to tell you that actually I spent about fifteen nights in the ride to Australia. I was in a small boat if you want to call that a boat, because it was smaller than that, with lots of difficulties. When I saw [we were] getting near Australia I was becoming a little bit hopeful. When we passed Darwin I got to the detention centre as soon as I looked at these barbed wires my mind was full of…

It was established to consider whether Australia's immigration detention laws and its treatment of children in immigration detention comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Commissioners: DR SEV OZDOWSKI, Human Rights Commissioner MRS ROBIN SULLIVAN, Queensland Children's Commissioner PROFESSOR TRANG THOMAS, Professor of Psychology, Melbourne Institute of Technology MS VANESSA LESNIE, Secretary to the Inquiry

Most children come to Australia with their parents, but some come alone, either sent by their family for their protection or because they have lost their family in a crisis.

Pursuant to section 11(1)(f)(ii) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Cth), I attach a report of an inquiry by the former President of the Commission into complaints made by immigration detainees against the Commonwealth of Australia. The former President found that the Commonwealth had breached the human rights of the complainants pursuant to articles 10(1) and 17(1) of…

The opportunities for children to engage in play and recreation have a critical impact on a child's experience of detention. However, the detention environment brings with it inherent difficulties in providing adequate opportunity for play and recreation.

The majority of reported sexual harassment was targeted at women, involved multiple forms of harassing behaviour and occurred on more than one occasion. In over one in five cases, the harassment continued for more than 12 months. Verbal harassment was often a precursor to physical forms of harassment.

Just send my children to school, and let them be in freedom. They should live in a human good atmosphere, they should learn something good, and not the things they are learning here.(1)

Focused age assessment interviews can be a useful technique for assessing age. Interviews of this kind have been used in Australia in a range of different ways since late 2010.

John was removed from his family as an infant in the 1940s. He spent his first years in Bomaderry Children's Home at Nowra. At 10 he was transferred to Kinchela.

The Inquiry has been committed to hearing from all parties in the Australian community who have been involved with the immigration detention of children.

DR OZDOWSKI: It is 9.30 so we will start another day off, formal hearings. My name is Dr Sev Ozdowski and I'm the Human Rights Commissioner. To my right is Dr Trang Thomas, Professor of Psychology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and to my left Mrs Robin Sullivan, Queensland's Children's Commissioner. Both of them do assist me with the Inquiry as Assistant Commissioners. Also, on my…