Abuse agony of 100,000 children sent to Empire
More than 100,000 children shipped off to populate the empire with ‘white British stock’ were subjected to rape, torture and slavery, an inquiry heard yesterday.
Successive governments ‘turned a blind eye’ as boatloads of youngsters as young as two were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Zimbabwe.
They suffered ‘exceptional depravity’ in children’s homes and farms run by paedophiles until as late as 1970.
A tearful victim called for the offenders to be named and shamed at the first public evidence hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. The £100million probe finally kicked off yesterday after a series of delays and setbacks: it has lost three chairmen and a series of lawyers since it was set up in 2014.
Thirteen different investigations are being held into institutional child sexual abuse at Westminster, in children’s homes, within churches and the ordeal suffered by the thousands sent overseas.
Between 1869 and 1970, around 130,000 young people were sent abroad in migration schemes subsidised by taxpayers. Some were unlawfully taken from their parents who thought they were going to have a better life with a foster family in the UK. Instead they were sent to Australian work camps, or becoming household servants.
They were subject to ‘widespread and systematic sexual abuse’ and torture. Vulnerable, poor and illegitimate children were separated from their siblings and wrongly told their parents were dead. Many have been unable to trace their families.
Among those running child migration schemes were charity and church groups with royal patrons including the Queen Mother. The programmes were endorsed by oxbridge academics and clerics who thought they were rescuing poor children and giving them opportunities.
British taxpayers subsidised the scheme to populate far-flung corners of the empire with ‘white British stock’ and reduce the burden on the state of looking after destitute children.
David Hill, who was sent to Australia aged 12, said: ‘We will never be able to undo the great wrong done to these children but what is important to survivors of sexual abuse is, where this inquiry is satisfied with the evidence, to name the villains.
‘Many of them are beyond the grave and are therefore beyond the law but it would bring a great deal of comfort to the people who as children were victims of these people if they were named and shamed.’
Aswini Weereratne, of the Child Migrants Trust, which represents many victims, said: ‘There is good evidence the UK government and agencies knew in the 1940s and 50s of the poor standards of care in Australian institutions and in some instances about sexual abuse. But the Government failed to respond to stop child migration until it fizzled out in 1970.’
About 2,000 former child migrants are alive and several are expected to give evidence to the inquiry over the next week. Australia was the destination for the majority after the Second World War.
Yesterday Samantha Leek QC, appearing on behalf of the UK Government, said: ‘Child migration is wrong. It should not have been sanctioned or facilitated by the government. The lifelong consequences for those involved are a matter of deep and sincere regret.’