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Four Corners: Adoption of Indigenous Australian children

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Margaret Valadian
Four Corners: Adoption of Indigenous Australian children

SUBJECTS:  Civics and Citizenship, History

YEARS:  9–10


Imagine being taken away from your family and forced to live with people from another language, place and culture.

This interview, recorded a week before the 1967 Referendum, captures an the perspective of Margaret Valadian, a prominent young Aboriginal Australian, on the practice of adoption and the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Between 1909 and 1969 approximately 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were taken from their families and placed into children's homes or adopted by non-Indigenous Australian families. Why do you think the Australian Government imposed this practice on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples?
  2. 2.What are Margaret Valadian's concerns with the adoption process, and how does she think this might affect the children? Do you agree with her? Think about the long-term impact for children who are forced to live in cultural groups very different to their own.
  3. 3.Margaret Valadian suggests in the clip that adopted children could be provided with 'some sort of cultural training' so that '… they would be able to better understand their predicament and face up to the problems that come along'. What might Margaret mean by 'their predicament' and the 'problems that come along'?
  4. 4.Read the 'Bringing them home Community Guide', in particular some of the case studies. Create a timeline showing the history of the removal of children from their families between 1905 and 1967. Prepare a report that explains why Australian governments supported the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, and why Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the 'Stolen Generations' in 2008.



Date of broadcast: 16 May 1967


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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