All surviving children sent off to the Empire ‘must be given payouts’
BRITAIN faces a hefty compensation bill after an inquiry ordered payouts to 2,000 children shipped off to populate the Empire with ‘white British stock’.
Boat-loads of children as young as two were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Zimbabwe.
Successive governments failed to protect them from suffering physical, emotional and sexual abuse in care homes and farms, the national child abuse inquiry has found.
Yesterday in her first major report, the chairman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Professor Alexis Jay, said the 2,000 survivors of the ‘deeply flawed’ child migration scheme should be compensated within 12 months.
She said an equal amount should be paid to every survivor because all were put at risk of sexual abuse.
Between 1869 and 1970, more than 100,000 youngsters were sent abroad as part of the scheme – subsidised by taxpayers. Some of the children had been unlawfully taken from their parents who thought they were going to have a better life with a foster family in the UK.
Many of the children experienced starvation, neglect, poor education, and in some cases abuse likened to ‘torture’.
The report found British governments ignored warnings of ill-treatment and abuse because they were ‘reluctant to jeopardise relations with the Australian government by withdrawing from the scheme, and also to upset philanthropic organisations such as Barnardo’s and the Fairbridge Society’.
‘ Many such organisations enjoyed patronage from persons of influence and position, and it is clear that in some cases the avoidance of embarrassment and reputational risk was more important than the institutions’ responsibilities towards migrated children,’ it added.
Among those running the scheme were charity and church groups with royal patrons.
The programmes were also endorsed by top Oxbridge academics and senior clerics who thought they were rescuing poor children and giving them
‘Better described as torture’
new opportunities abroad. The Royal Overseas League, whose patron is the Queen, has never apologised for its role in the scandal. Fairbridge, now part of the Prince’s Trust, has ‘repeatedly failed to offer any support or reparations to its former child migrants’, the report said.
It found children were treated as ‘commodities’, with one institution referring to its ‘requisition’ for a number of youngsters to be sent to Australia. For 100 years, taxpayers subsidised the scheme which was intended to populate far-flung corners of the Empire with ‘white British stock’ and reduce the cost on the state of looking after destitute children.
Vulnerable, poor and illegitimate children were separated from siblings and wrongly told their parents were dead. Many have never been able to trace their families.
It was also used as a means of meeting labour shortages in the colonies. As a consequence of being forced to work from an early age many of the children left school illiterate.
The inquiry heard some youngsters were sent to do backbreaking work in Australian ‘ work camps’ or forced to become house slaves.
One boy locked in a ‘dungeon’ without food or water for days said his experience was ‘better described as torture’.
Professor Jay said: ‘Successive British governments failed to ensure there were sufficient measures in place to protect children from all forms of abuse … The policy was allowed to continue despite evidence over many years showing that children were suffering.’
In 2010, then prime minister Gordon Brown apologised on behalf of the Government.