Why were Australian Aboriginal children taken away from their parents

By the time the Europeans began to develop the territory of Australia, according to various estimates, from 750 thousand to 1 million representatives of the indigenous population lived on the mainland. Today, indigenous Australians live in cities and large settlements and are almost completely assimilated by the white population of the country. Their lands are occupied by numerous farms, and most of them do not speak their native language. This was largely due to the fact that for many years the country pursued a policy of removing children from Aboriginal families.

European colonialists arrived in Australia only at the end of the 18th century, and the indigenous people who lived on the mainland and adjacent islands were Australian aborigines. The history of relations between the newcomers and the natives is in many ways similar to the Spanish invasion of America.

The natural conditions of Australia are very specific. The central part of the mainland is occupied by huge arid spaces, with sparse vegetation and lack of water. A large area is occupied by sandy deserts. The most liveable regions are located on the coast of Australia, mainly in the southeast.

Arriving on the shores of Australia, British subjects established a colony here. Initially, they mastered the coast, built cities and ports here. The newcomer population cut down bushes and trees under agricultural plantations and developed the depths of the continent in search of gold. At the same time, the natives living here were forced to leave their original habitats in deserted areas unsuitable for life. They often died of European diseases to which they did not have immunity. Armed clashes were also frequent, leading to the death of the indigenous people of Australia. By the middle of the XIX century, when the British became the absolute masters of the continent, the remnants of local residents were forcibly resettled on the reservation.

In order to assimilate the remaining Aboriginal people, a project was adopted at the state level to remove indigenous Australians from their families. Representatives of the Australian federal government and Christian missionaries dealt with the destruction of Australian Aboriginal families until the 70s of the last century. In this regard, a special term even arose - "stolen generation". It has been suggested that this has been going on for at least 70 years, since the beginning of the 20th century, although some researchers believe that the removal of children was already in the 1860s.

Children lived in special boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their native language. They also did not have the opportunity to see their parents. The children were taught English and were given primary education, which was enough to work on farms or engage in other physical labor. These actions were officially explained as protecting Aboriginal children. The Australian authorities did this allegedly in order to protect the remnants of the native Australians from complete extinction and incest with the white population. But most researchers consider what happened in Australia until the 1970s to be a genocide of the Australian race. This version is also supported by the fact that Kevin Michael Rudd, an Australian MP and Australian Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, apologized publicly in 2008 for Aboriginal policies.

Today, about 450 thousand representatives of the indigenous peoples of the continent live in Australia. A significant part of them does not speak their native language, but only knows English. Most Aboriginal people do not own traditional crafts and have lost the ability to conduct traditional farming, with the exception of those who live in national parks. Their number is gradually growing due to high birth rates, but their standard of living is significantly lower than the standard of living of white Australians.