Stolen Generation: Aboriginal and Torres strait islander health

This article discusses the Stolen Generation of Aboriginal and Torres strait islander health, exploring the history, consequences, and efforts for reconciliation. It highlights the negative impacts on the health and well-being of the children who were forcibly removed from their families.

Running Head: NURSING
Topic- Stolen Generation: Aboriginal and Torres strait islander health
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The topic for discussion here is Stolen Generation of the Aboriginal and Torres strait
islander health. For that, first we need to understand what is the meaning of the stolen
generation. To support understanding a brief history of the Australian aboriginal and Torres strait
islanders need to be considered.
Just think, how will you react if you one fine day you lose the ones you love the most?
And that too for the color of the skin? Speechless and hopeless right? Same is the case with the
stolen generation. In literary terms stolen generation can be interpreted as the generations of the
aboriginal children taken away from their respective families by the Government, welfare bodies
and Churches to support their brought-up facilities in those institutions or are being fostered out
to white people families (Cuthbert & Quartly, 2013). Until 1969 this was one Government policy
in Australia and under the Aboriginal Protection Act legal sanction was provided to the Board to
take children away from their homes without their parental concern or any kind of court order.
Cannot just imagine that this could actually happen and the Government will do it. Though the
aim of the children being removed from their aboriginality was to support their own good and
children were removed to accustom them to live like white Australians as the Australians were
just embarrassed by the black skinned Aboriginal race in their country (Dudgeon & Hirvonen,
2014).
But the aftermaths were not at all pleasant and the tragedy compounded on the part of the
children as they were encountered with racism and are rejected by the very own society which
once forcefully brought them there. The separation has a life-long negative consequence on the
lives of the children who are called as ‘stole generation’ or the ‘stolen children’ (Funston &
Herring, 2016). The children were remarked as half-caste mixed-race children who have no
proper existence proof. The policy of Assimilation based on the assumption of white superiority

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and black inferiority instead of lowering the gap it is increased manifold and racial
discrimination and social unrest become more prominent (Lavarch, 2017). If considered from
humanitarian side this is definitely an inhuman act and is beyond mercy. The children became
more helpless and their lives become devastated. And study also reveal that there are no such
huge differences among the children who were forcefully taken and the ones who were not in
terms of education, social interaction, employment opportunities etc. (Tatz, 2017). Only the
average income increased for the take away children but their root behavioral aspects remained
unchanged.
Imagine if one day an officer came and simply takes you away from your parents without
any cause, any fault of yours. How will you feel? Will you forgot all or will you be able bear the
loses throughout your life? No one can overcome this trauma. Thus, the stolen generation still
matters today and the forcible removal of the Aboriginal and Torres strait indigenous children
from their families has profound negative impacts on their health and living standards. The taken
away children were victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuses in their state care
homes and also in their adoptive so-called homes (Tatz, 2017). The children were forced to give
up their cultural backgrounds and many were forced to change religion and this caused them feel
ashamed of their own indigenous heritage. Many of them were falsely told that their parents have
died and this causes huge mental disturbance on those children and sometimes cause mental
illness in them (Funston & Herring, 2016). Their health deprives considerably as they were
punished with harsh punishments and were provided minimal food and affection. The children
largely were victims of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and suicidal tendency is even
noticed in the stolen generation children (Terszak, 2015). Could a mother ever forget her
children and live happily? Its next to impossible. The situation is thus, even worse for the part of

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their families as maximum parents are unable to recover from the grief of losing their children.
Alcoholism addiction increases among the parents. The whole culture of the aboriginals gets
distorted as a result of this policy of separation.
To conclude it could be said that such inhuman policies should never be supported by any
Government and no racial discrimination can be uprooted by implementing such anti-social laws.
As the action plan the ‘Bringing them home’ report supported social valuation and mentioned
that the child removal policy was a breach of the fundamental human rights and finally in 2007 a
National apology was delivered addressing the stolen generation by the Government (Terszak,
2015). But this mere apology cannot provide the children their childhood back, cannot lessen
their trauma nor can give back the time they were not able to spend with their families. The
would will remain unhealed over generations and generations.

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References
Cuthbert, D., & Quartly, M. (2013). Forced child removal and the politics of national apologies
in Australia. American Indian Quarterly, 37(1-2), 178-202.
Dudgeon, P., & Hirvonen, T. (2014). Dark chapters in Australian history: Adopted children from
the Stolen Generations. InPsych: The Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society
Ltd, 36(4), 12.
Funston, L., & Herring, S. (2016). When will the stolen generations end?: A qualitative critical
exploration of contemporary'child protection'practices in Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander communities. Sexual Abuse in Australia and New Zealand, 7(1), 51.
Lavarch, M. (2017). A New Stolen Generation. Flinders LJ, 19, 1.
Tatz, C. (2017). The destruction of Aboriginal society in Australia. In Genocide of Indigenous
peoples (pp. 93-122). Routledge.
Terszak, M. (2015). Orphaned by the colour of my skin: A stolen generation story. Routledge.