THE WELFARE OF FORMER BRITISH CHILD MIGRANTS
Conclusion
98. Child migration was a bad and, in human terms,
costly mistake. Mr David Hill, a successful ex-Fairbridge Resident
who is currently Chairman of Soccer Australia (the Australian
equivalent of the Football Association), remarked to us during
our visit to Australia that irreversible, irrevocable damage had
been done by the schemes. We have met many former child migrants
who continue to suffer from emotional and psychological problems
arising directly from this misguided social policy. Mr Hill regarded
the fundamental problem with the Australian schemes as being the
absence of any support for a child's emotional development. Many
child migrants were separated from siblings and lived in profound
geographical and social isolation, which left them unable to prepare
themselves effectively for integration into adult life and society
at large. Blame must be distributed amongst all the governments
and agencies who involved themselves with child migration. This
imposes on them a responsibility to offer help to the surviving
human casualties of the child migration schemes. As Mr John Willoughby
of the Ellen Foundation remarked, "the past is the past,
it is there, it is a reality and we have to live with it."[124]
99. Public and official understanding of former child
migrants' problems has increased in recent years, and the prevailing
mood is to move forwards positively. Nonetheless, we are persuaded
that both governments and agencies could do more to improve the
welfare of former child migrants. Such action will require additional
British Government funding. Up until now the Government's financial
contribution towards alleviating the plight of many former child
migrants, in the form of its intermittent small grants to the
Child Migrants' Trust, has been lamentably low.
100. It is important to learn the lessons of the
past. Our recent inquiry into Children Looked After by Local Authorities
revealed that even today some children in care are placed by local
authorities long distances from their home environment. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State at the DoH, Mr Paul Boateng MP, expressed
his concern over this when giving evidence in that inquiry:
"I view with increasing
concern a tendency to place children a long way from a local authority
which is their home. It produces all sorts of problems ... in
terms of effective management and supervision of the placement."[125]
The recent report by Sir William Utting on abuse
in local authority care makes clear the extent to which lack of
adequate supervision and safeguards can lead to children being
abused with impunity. Mr Luce of the DoH, giving evidence to us
on the welfare of former child migrants, commented that
" What the Utting Report
shows is that the level of awareness of risk to children living
away from home was at the heart of the failures to police a child
care system properly in the 1960s and the 1970s and even during
the 1980s."[126]
101. Potential future difficulties related to inter-country
adoptions which may mirror some of the current concerns of former
child migrants about their identity and past were brought to our
attention in both New Zealand and Australia. We note from a recent
Written Answer that 1,066 inter-country adoption applications
have been processed in the UK since 1992.[127]
We urge extreme caution when considering these applications. Removing
children from their country of birth should not be seen as an
alternative to appropriate child care or occur because insufficient
aid or assistance is available.
124 Q 78. Back
125
HC (1997-98) 319-vi, Q 897. Back
126
Q13. Back
127
Official Report, 2 July 1998, col 252. Back
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