Stolen Generations continue – cut ties with Governments – to sanction them | The Stringer

15.12.16

Stolen Generations continue – cut ties with Governments – to sanction them | The Stringer: The latest mantra with the current Stolen Generations is no different to the Stolen Generations that were attributed to have effectively ended in 1969, that children removed from their families should not be returned and that they are better off in permanent placement.

The Purfleet Mission was a place where people’s lives were monitored – you could not leave the mission to go into town or to the beach without the manager’s permission. It was apartheid but in that corral Bill had the love of his family to navigate him through an unfair and cruel world.

The trauma of being separated from your family never leaves you. Bill Simon, “I cried my heart out, you know, it made me that angry because no one was there to help me. I was only thinking about me and my three little brothers all crying out for Mum and Dad. And see, that was the last time I ever, ever seen Dad. We never seen Dad again, he died.”

Bill’s time in ‘welfare’ was one of torment – a sameness that we have heard in every testimony, from all those who were removed and a sameness many of us continue to hear today of children removed.

“If you’d done anything wrong, one of the worst, main offences was to speak back to the White staff.”