User:Percival van Cleve/Stolen Generations

Introduction

"The Stolen Generations are those Aboriginal people who were removed from their families and often their country. They were removed by white authority because they were Aboriginal. Often they have not been able to return to their families."

- David Guy, Opening Address of Stolen Generations National Workshop, 1996

"Among the major issues confronting Aboriginal Australians in the 1990s is the issue of child removal. The social impact of these 'lost generations' – Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families, culture and land by the policies of successive governments – continues even today."

- Irene Stainton, Address to United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Geneva, 1995

"Every person needs to belong and I am no exception. NOt knowing very much about my family has weighed heavily on my mind all my life. It was government policy that Aboriginal mission children were not told where we camej from or who our parents were. Not even tribal people living outside the mission dared to break this regulation. Thus I grew up knowing almost nothing about my background or my early childhood."

- Connie Nuungulla McDonald (taken to Forrest River Mission, aged 4 months, 1933)