Trigger warning: This article contains discussions of structural racism, offensive ideas, the abuse of children and different forms of trauma.

What was behind the reason for removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and homelands? It is the result of racism and the idea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were racially inferior to people with Caucasian background. Lighter skin or ‘mixed blood’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were frequently targeted by these policies because it was believed that being younger, they would better assimilate into white society. Auber Octavius Neville, a government worker who oversaw this practice in Western Australia, wrote that removing lighter skin or ‘mixed blood’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, forcing them to lose their culture and then organising for them to be adopted into a white family, would eventually ‘breed the black out’, and wipe out Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples forever.

If this article is bringing up issues for you, reach out to your family, community, teacher or free counselling services like headspace or the Kids Helpline for help.

The missions and reserves also served other heinous purposes. They were a way to move Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples off their lands and control their movements while they were on the missions. On some missions, older children and adults were forced to work in servitude roles, rented out by the people who managed the missions, for little or no payment.

These policies and practices had devastating consequences. Many of the children who were removed because of these policies were psychologically, physically, and sexually abused while living on the missions and reserves and/or with their adoptive families. Furthermore, many of the children were taught that their culture and identity was inferior, thereby embedding feelings of shame about who they were. And, by forcibly forbidding cultural practices and removing children from their families, the ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members to pass down their culture to future generations was negatively affected.

Even after being allowed to leave the mission, those who were stolen would have to live with the trauma caused by the mission and/or reserve, while living in a society that still discriminated against them. Some were given ‘exemptions’ as they were deemed white enough to no longer be Aboriginal, but rarely did this stop the discrimination they faced.

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