The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Remembering Australian Child Slavery > Comments

Remembering Australian Child Slavery : Comments

By Richard Hil, Joanna Penglase and Gregory Smith, published 26/10/2007

Slavery involving Indigenous, migrant and non-Indigenous children in Australia goes back to the earliest convict days and endured throughout the last century.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. All
This is just so sad!

huffnpuff I am sorry to hear of your plight but glad to hear that you are putting up a fight. More people need to do the same so as to hold this Government to account. They are still today trying to cover up neglect and abuse of children, they will always try to cover up neglect and abuse of children because for the most part of it they are guilty of it themselves through their actions or lack of action!

I too am fighting the Government, although for different matters that involve the Government ignoring and not dealing with complaints about education staff victimising and bullying children and exercising bias and misconduct in education. The scary thing is that everybody turns a blind eye and turns it on you. Even TODAY people do not seem to care about the children and are quite prepared to allow a system to deny those trying to expose injustices aimed at children procedural fairness and natural justice. It seems that the only people who have rights are those who fail in their duty of care and commit crimes. These criminals are protected - the children do not have any avenue for protection and no rights.

Education - Keeping them HOnest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Posted by Jolanda, Sunday, 28 October 2007 8:33:47 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Good On You Huffnpuff, you give us all strength, by having it.

I just wanted to re-quote the wisdom from LAINEE and Jup;

a) 'Aboriginal peoples weren't given billions of dollars, the money gained from exploitation of their lands rightly belongs to them. ....aboriginal people never gave them... their country.'

and b) "Young people on 'allowances' .... do heavy labour... all under the guise of doing environmental work. "

"Various governments attitudes toward voluntarism are just plain exploitation."

and; " We must be ever vigilant to this capacity to abuse."

As an Administrator at Hope Vale in Cape York for a short time during 1999, my role was seriously manipulated by all sides of politics over moral issues to do with the struggle for Indigenous "Royalities" and the authentic control value of "CDEP".

At that time, I found the interference of outside politic's extremely unreasonable, backward and hostile. The integrity of these players was mostly out of line.

I found residents themselves to be hard workers and inspiring. It was impossible for those living there, who'd tried over many decades to form a platform of solid trust, faith and integrity. Hope Vale is a community suffering decades of betrayal through developmental chaos.

I fought to up-grade the skills training opportunities through CDEP. I was horrified that so many talented "young people" were expected to work like convicts on the roads, rates and rubbish without thought to wided their enterprising skills base. It all felt hopeless.

Southern Officals I interviewed (Cairns, Brisbance, ACT) suffered from a "politic's as usual" approach. It is about doing nothing or taking a easy way out.

NO attempt is made to really address these grassroot micro-enterprise needs. It is an environement capped with politcal adversity. Burn-Out and Stress is common among residents.

Meanwhile the Council is forced to import public servants for clerical work, CEO positions and the running of the shop. Like myself, these people are also affronted and don't stay very long.

Changing these base-line inequalities will go nowhere until we get an agenda based on some real infrastructure and common sense.

http://www.miacat.com
.
Posted by miacat, Sunday, 28 October 2007 11:10:50 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Changing these base-line inequalities will go nowhere until we get an agenda based on some real infrastructure and common sense.
miacat,
Only yesterday I was talking with a community elder about that very problem. He complained that the southern fishermen are making money in the northern (his) waters. I asked why the young local blokes don't go out & catch fish just like the southerners. He said "how can we when the government doesn't give us boats". there are literally hundreds of unused dinghies lying around in these communities that could be used. He also said the young fellers don't get any support (what, after free education & more opportunities than any other youngster in this country). He also said the government's taking our land & put a school, a powerstation, a health centre & a TV transmitter on it & we got no compensation for it. He got angry when I told him that those fishermen didn't get their boats from the government so why should his people.
miacat, how do you suggest a community could forge ahead under these circumstances. I tell you how; get some motivation, get away from this instituionalised artificial racism nonsense, stop pussy-footing with delinquents, tell the academic do-gooders to stay at home & be quiet & let real decent people go about their daily lives without constant interference from mainly left-wing bureaucatic stupidity. Another good step in the right direction would be to work on getting some culture back instead of the reggae mentality that's ruined whatever culture there ever was.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 28 October 2007 1:38:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It is obvious that any people who have commonsense solutions to the indigenous issues are labeled racist. The voices of the academics will continue to drown out those who have and do work with aboriginal people. Welfare, idleness, alcholol, drugs and pornography will continue to be the 'rights' of the people even if it kills them. The children will continue to be abused and the academics will say it is your fault if you are white no matter how much you try. The shame is not what happened 150 years ago but the fact that we let and have let these 'experts' push their political agendas for decades.
Posted by runner, Sunday, 28 October 2007 9:10:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
frankgol.....I always enjoy your strident moralistic overtures :)

You speak with such confidence as if to say "I assert it..thus is must be true"...no offence.. thats just how it comes across.. I guess I must seem the same at times eh :)

The difference between us is that you see these things as self evidence to all.. I see them as needing to be brought to bear on human consience with divine authority.

You said:

"Sexual abuse and exploitation of children is criminal wherever it occurs and whenever."

May I make a small distinction there? I'm reflecting on the old testament here.. child sexual abuse was a definite no no..but 'exploitation' has many sides. If a parent faces starvation of his family, then.. he would (in those days) 'sell' his son or daughter to a more prosperous individual as a servant. To do so did not mean automatic sexual abuse, but it was in some ways "exploitation" though I suggest not of the malevolent kind.

Life can be a real bitch.. when we are utterly dependant on an instutution or the mercy of better off people.. we kind of take the hand life deals us. No one would suggest that any kind if ill treatment is ok, yet in the real world it seems hard to avoid it all the time.

Don't you consider that if a society had a very strong sense of conscience and right and wrong... and had networks of people who could hold each other accountable, then... perhaps there would be less of this ?

People who relish the idea of 'power' over children may slip though the interview process of institutions.. the institution itself might be utterly desperate to have SOME-one to help... and this can produce compromise..

This leads me to the obvious (to those who know me) that nothing short of national and heartfelt repentance to the Almighty will ever produce a sense of values strong enough to produce a loving community.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 29 October 2007 7:51:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
BOAZ_David,

I'm pleased that you enjoy my 'strident moralistic overtures'. I wish I could say the feeling's mutual, but I hate to lie.

You tell me that: "The difference between us is that you see these things as self evidence to all.. I see them as needing to be brought to bear on human consience with divine authority." To which I reply, "What does 'human consience with divine authority' mean?"

Your old testament reference to a poor family selling a child is a cop out. I'm talking about conscious systemic child sexual abuse and exploitation that happenend in Australia within living memory.

Just as insipid is your reference to how "we kind of take the hand life deals us". No we don't. If the act is illegal, we fight it in the courts or anywhere we can get the perpetrator exposed. And we should expect peole like you to support us.

I don't think you have any idea of how children's institutions worked. You say: "People who relish the idea of 'power' over children may slip though the interview process of institutions.. the institution itself might be utterly desperate to have SOME-one to help... and this can produce compromise.." David, there were no interviews, no accountability, no one to speak on behalf of the child. Just dark corridors and locked dormitories.

As for your reference to "heartfelt repentance to the Almighty", the people who sodomised these vulnerable children then made them go to church. What were the buggerised little children meant to do - pray for the Lord's forgiveness for leading their adult 'carers' astray? Perhaps my experience explains what you call my 'strident moralistic overtures'.
Posted by FrankGol, Monday, 29 October 2007 10:52:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy