Memorandum by the British Child Migrants
Society (NZ) Incorporated
Child Migrants (CM 5A)
Contents1. Executive summary2. Body of the submission3.
Appendices (Not printed)
Executive summarySubmission of the British Child
Migrants Society NZ Inc to the Health Committee, House of Commons
New Zealand experimented with receiving unaccompanied
child immigrants for over a century from 1842.
The Royal Over-Seas League sponsored to the
New Zealand government approximately 530 children and young persons
for emigration between 1949 and 1954 when the scheme ended.
The enabling legislation was the Child Welfare
Amendment Act, 1948, which made all landed immigrants wards of
the state under the guardianship of the Superintendent of Child
Welfare.
Children were mostly placed by pre-arrangement
with relatives or family friends. Some were adopted by those families.
Only in later life did these immigrants discover
irregularities in their citizenship status, which brought hardship
to a considerable number.
A mutual-support incorporated society of former
child immigrants (BCMS) was formed in New Zealand in 1995 after
five years of setting up work and contact with government agencies.
The BCM Society has a petition for a public
inquiry before the Social Services Select Committee of the New
Zealand Parliament.
Members of the Society allege that there were
serious deficiencies in the passing of their guardianship to New
Zealand authorities, and that many have suffered life-long problems
as a result of the standard of care provided.
The results of a member survey are reported
together with verbatim accounts as appendices.
The BCM Society prays for relief for its members
from the House of Commons and puts forward recommendations on
ways and means.
Brief backgroundIn common with other British colonies,
New Zealand was a destination for migration from the home country
of people of all types. Early experiments with special classes
of immigrants such as the Parkhurst boys coming to New Zealand
in the 1940s, proved to be unacceptable to the new colony. Schemes
of migration for unaccompanied children began again later in the
century, and in the earlier part of the twentieth century gathered
momentum under the auspices of the Empire Settlement League. Recognising
that as a new and developing country New Zealand was often short
of labour, the New Zealand Government fostered and promoted the
idea of "boy immigrants", and during the 1920s laid
down regulations for their assisted passage, reception into New
Zealand and the conditions of employment. That fell into disuse
with the Great Depression, and the next planned migration of unaccompanied
children was the wartime sojourn of the CORB children wherein
201 children came to New Zealand for the duration of the war.Postwar
economic conditions in New Zealand led to a further demand for
immigrants, particularly younger people. By coincidence, the New
Zealand Government had to find a way of dealing with the large
party of Polish refugee adults and children who had come temporarily
to New Zealand during the war during their dispersion from Poland,
to Russia, to Persia and India, and on to other western countries.
The communist regime in Poland after the war made it impossible
for the nationalist-inclined Polish refugee groups to consider
a return. Thus, the Child Welfare Amendment Act, 1948, made provision
not only for those Polish children still under the age of majority
to come under the guardianship of the Superintendent of Child
Welfare, but also to enable the New Zealand Government again to
enter into an agreement with Britain to receive unaccompanied
children. By this time, the Empire Settlement League had become
the Royal Overseas League (ROL). The part played by ROL was as
a broker in identifying and marshalling children who had been
volunteered for immigration to New Zealand, in association with
the New Zealand Government Department of Labour. Once landed in
New Zealand, the children became to responsibility of the Superintendent
of Child Welfare under the Child Welfare Act. Many were placed
with nominated relatives or friends, and an unknown number were
adopted by those guardians ad litem.Between 1949 and 1954
the scheme enabled the immigration of some 600 unaccompanied young
people to New Zealand. Included in that figure were 70 young people
destined for the training institution "Flock House",
an agricultural training scheme administered by the New Zealand
Sheep Owners Fund. Trainees volunteering for that scheme were
also marshalled in parties along with the ROL children and little
differentiation can be made between them. Some of the trainees
did not in fact enrol at Flock House, but saw out their time working
on farms or in other occupations before they became independent.The
ROL scheme as it applied to New Zealand differed from the auspices
and conditions under which British children were sent to Australia,
Canada and South Africa. In particular, there were no organised
schemes run by private or church bodies for unaccompanied children.
The consequences of that have been that New Zealand neither saw
the same scale of migration, nor the reported instances of institutional
abuse on the same scale in New Zealand. The published histories
of the various schemes all acknowledge that children tended to
fare better in New Zealand under central guardianship, than in
the fragmented systems elsewhere where children could "get
lost", without a third party guardian to look after their
welfare.
Yesterday's remedies, today's problemsIt is a truism
in the history of child welfare generally that inventions made
for the welfare of children have often subsequently proved to
become part of the problem. Unaccompanied child immigration is
no exception. It is often a source of wonderment to people not
involved personally in these schemes why they heard little about
them, and why it took up to 40 years before questioning of the
schemes began in earnest. The answer to that will be before the
Committee in the published work of the Child Migrants Trust of
Nottingham first of all in the book sponsored by them "Lost
Children of the Empire" by Bean and Melville, and the more
recent work "Empty Cradles", by the Director and initiator
of the Trust, Margaret Humphries. The explanations really boil
down to three main reasons. Firstly, there comes a stage in the
development of the life cycle where people have the freedom, leisure
and finances to be able to look at questions arising out of their
own origins. Secondly, authority and power relationships tend
to take on a different quality once some of the emotion goes out
of those relationships. It is very difficult for younger people
to challenge the authority and so called wisdom of their older
caregivers. Thirdly, there is a sense in which the 1980s and 1990s
have become the "age of disclosure". It is very easy
to ask why people didn't speak up earlier, but one needs to see
this in the context of a social climate which permits and encourages
the redress of grievances for past abuse.
The search for remediesAs the questioning of the
treatment of the youngsters sent abroad from Britain under various
schemes gained momentum through the work of the Child Migrant
Trust, so to did it encourage other people to come forward and
to coalesce into support groups and networks which enabled the
individual problem to be related to the larger systemic issue.
That was the case in New Zealand where findings from abroad were
picked up by a few people in New Zealand, and networking began
in earnest in 1990, with the result that in 1995 the British Child
Migrants Society became incorporated with a membership of around
60 persons. In querying the representativeness of the Society,
the question is often raised of what happened to the other 540
people, how do they feel about their experiences of migration
now, and whether they are of the same or a different view from
the members of the Society? A lack of resources in conducting
a wholesale information campaign has prevented the Society from
making its work and purposes wider known, but we do have clues
to the whereabouts and feelings of some of those unaccounted for.
In the first place, we know that a number are no longer resident
in New Zealand and have either returned to the United Kingdom
or elsewhere, and we can expect that a considerable number will
now be deceased.Approaches made to persons known have come under
the ROL scheme, and who have not subsequently joined the Society,
fall into two main categories. Firstly, there are those whose
lives have been so badly damaged by the trauma of immigration
that they cannot bear to have any reference made to it. Secondly,
there are those at the other end of the scale for whom the experience
of migration has been satisfactorily coped with, and is an event
in their past which now does not hold the same significant meaning
as it holds for other people. Of course, there will be many and
varied reasons why people do not wish to come forward. Prior to
the incorporation of the Society, the Steering Committee working
on that project had begun negotiations with the officials of the
New Zealand Government, and others, in an effort to see what assistance
could be given to the concerns of former migrants. Approaches
made to the Royal Overseas League Headquarters in London were
entirely fruitless. It seems that the League has no wish to claim
its part in the resettlement schemes of which it was such a big
player, indeed, its standard response is that it simply now has
no records pertaining to those times. Similarly, searches of the
archives of the New Zealand Department of Labour, and of the Child
Welfare Division were largely fruitless.
New Zealand Government responseSteering Committee
overtures made to the New Zealand Government Minister of Social
Welfare on the question of a collective remedy for former immigrants
and assistance towards answering their concerns, were met with
a very guarded response. Initially, the response was that if people
wished to approach the Department then they would get the normal
assistance applying to former wards, that is, assistance in locating
and access to their personal files. That has proved to be problematic
for many of the immigrants whose files have not been able to be
located. A later development was that the Department offered "counselling"
by members of its adoption teams in regional centres to assist
with any personal problems that former wards may have experienced.
In the words of one former ward "It was like asking a holocaust
survivor to get assistance from the Gestapo". What he was
saying, in effect, was that it is very difficult for people to
feel confident in approaching and using the services of people
whom they think were partly responsible for their situation in
the first place. Efforts to persuade the Minister of Social Welfare
to hold an inquiry also came to nothing, and in the event it was
left to the Committee to petition the House of Parliament on a
motion of the opposition spokesperson of immigration the Hon.
Annette King lodged at Parliament on 18 July 1996. Independently,
a few members and non-members have instructed solicitors to bring
civil actions against the Crown for negligence of guardianship.By
1993, the government departments concerned, namely Social Welfare,
Internal Affairs (concerned with citizenship) and Labour, had
convened an officials committee to look into the concerns of child
immigrants. The evidence for some kind of assistance, particularly
in regard to citizenship, was so compelling that at the inaugural
meeting of the British Child Migrants Society officials of the
Internal Affairs Department attended in person to streamline procedures
for citizenship applications and the normal fees were waived.
At the same time, assistance was given towards regularising applications
for passports and special contact persons were set up within the
Department of Internal Affairs to receive and process such inquiries.The
petition lodged is to be heard by the Social Services Committee
of the House of Representatives. While the Chairperson of that
Committee the Hon. Joy MacLachlan, has been most helpful and cordial
with the officers of the Society, the decision has been made to
let the petition lie on the table until there is an outcome from
the inquiry of the Health Committee of the Westminster House of
Commons. This is a situation which the society finds far from
satisfactory, as it believes that issues that members have with
both sovereign governments are separate and should not be dealt
with as somehow sequential. However, the Society does welcome
the initiative made by the House of Commons and at its Annual
General Meeting in September, 1997, the Society resolved that
it would commission its research Officer, Dr D J McDonald, to
undertake a polling of members on the psychosocial issues which
should be put before the Health Committee. The outcome of that
follows in the next section.
Members views and concernsBased on the findings of
early research, it was felt that a short relatively simple questionnaire
would be the best method of ascertaining members views. The questionnaire
form appears as appendix I attached to this submission. There
were two main sections to it.Firstly, members were asked to make
a rating on a five point scale of the way in which they felt their
experience of being a child immigrant had effected their life
chances. 42 persons responded to that, 12 feeling that it affected
their lives very badly, seven reporting that it affected their
lives moderately badly and 14 that it had affected their lives
with mixed results. Seven persons felt that it affected their
lives for the better and two persons made no response to that
question. These figures are shown again in Table 1. Table
1
Degree to which child immigration experience
affected life
affected life very badly 12affected
life moderately 7affected life with mixed results 14affected life
for better 7no response 2
Total 42
The second part of the questionnaire asked people to check one
or more out of a list of 10 commonly known concerns as these had
affected them. The figures for that response appear as Table 2,
and the commentary which follows is given under those main sub-headings.Table
2
Types of concern arising from child
immigration experience
1. loss of citizenship 18
2. loss of identity 24 3. abuse/ill treatment 13 4. neglect
9 5. adjustment problems 27 6. relationship problems 22 7.
separation from family 30 8. losing contact with siblings 28
9. discrimination 1910. lost opportunities 14
Total 204
1. LOSS OF
CITIZENSHIPThis affected 18 persons
in the sample. Of all of the issues about the dislocation arising
from an immigration scheme, loss of citizenship features in many
of the immigrants stories, and even in those who have not reported
that it was a great concern for them. Evidence is given elsewhere
of the way in which there was a very sloppy transition in citizenship
for those people who were to become state wards. Moreover, citizenship
has created some legal and social anomalies which should never
have occurred, in particular members being appointed to official
positions, such as Justices of the Peace, or being conscripted
or serving overseas in the armed forces, with an oath of loyalty
to the New Zealand Government, on the incorrect presumption that
they were New Zealand citizens, when in fact they were not.At
the personal level, the confusion over citizenship has led to
many instances of dispute over citizenship or permanent residency
status. Probably the most flagrant case is that of a member who
was brought involuntarily to New Zealand as a child migrant and
later returned to live and work in the United Kingdom. Upon his
return to New Zealand with his wife and family he was denied access
to the country initially, and then was told that he would not
be accepted for permanent residency status. Although that situation
has since been satisfactorily resolved, it was a great personal
anguish and considerable delay and expense for the person to find
out the hard way that simply being sent as a child migrant did
not automatically entitle him to citizenship.
2. LOSS OF
IDENTITYIntertwined with all the
other dimensions, is the underlying confusion over identity. It
was all very well for the welfare authorities, foster parents
and significant people in the children's lives to act as if a
clean break was necessary, but we now know that uncertainty about
personal identity is one of the main causes of adjustment problems
in adulthood. We are not just talking here about the transitory
phase many people face at adolescence, but for most former child
migrants this is about a life-long process, in which both personal
and citizenship identity was confused or withheld. Many of these
immigrants were raised in the climate when illegitimacy was seen
as a stigma so the answer to the question "who am I?"
was often overshadowed by fear and shame that such origins would
be revealed. A strong motive towards some redress for the grievances
which immigrants now feel, is for a speedy resolution to that
loss of identity.
3. ABUSE/ILL
TREATMENTAnecdotes about the treatment
received when under the care of the Child Welfare Division as
child immigrants have been very slow to emerge owing to people's
embarrassment and shame at the events that happened to them. That
abuse took many forms. Although we have noted that there was less
institutionalised abuse, and fewer chances for sexual abuse of
the type than happened in Australia and in Canada, individual
members have now been revealing instances of sexual and physical
abuse which should never have occurred under a properly invigilated
supervision system.One of the most commonly recurring themes at
the fine edge of ill treatment is the exploitation of young men
and women, many of them still of school age who interpret their
situations as being "slave labour". Rural and farm placements
were quite a common avenue of securing foster care for children
in the 1940s and 1950s under the child welfare system. The way
in which young men particularly were treated includes accounts
of being excluded from family living, made to work long hours,
and seeing little financial return for their labours. All these
are commonly reported in Appendix II, and a verbatim account of
the abuse of one boy immigrant appears as Appendix III.
4. NEGLECTThis category
was included to differentiate between item 2 on abuse and ill
treatment, as many people felt they could not categorise their
experiences in that way, but were still the victims of indifference
and inaction. For some, this was exemplified by the seeming lack
of interest by the Child Welfare Officers, who had abrogated their
guardianship duties to foster parents and nominated relatives,
and failed to show due diligence in the supervision of those placements.
For others, it was simply indifference and a patently lower standard
of care accorded to them, which made them feel that they had missed
out on good enough parenting to substitute for those they had
left behind.
5. ADJUSTMENT PROBLEMSIt
is a well documented fact that people who experience stressful
situations in childhood and adolescence are likely to have problems
of adjustment in adulthood. When one combines that with uncertainty
about identity, and lack of knowledge about origins, then sometimes
the effects can be exacerbated. As the anecdotes in Appendix II
show, this lack of identity often led to adjustment problems in
employment and life in general.
6. RELATIONSHIP
PROBLEMSWhile, of course, everyone
is at risk for less than smooth transitions from dependence to
independence, single to married status, and the transitions of
parenthood, many members are convinced that their childhood experiences
are at the root of their failure adequately to make and sustain
interpersonal relationships. The worst outcomes are for those
who have shown symptoms later on the compensatory behaviours,
addictions, depression or conditions needing expert help, and
other problems attributed to that childhood trauma. Again, this
is a recurring theme in members' stories.
7. SEPARATION FROM
FAMILY/8. LOST
CONTACT WITH
SIBLINGSConnected to the previous
item, are the effects of being denied access to and knowledge
of ones origins, particularly birth families and siblings. This
is an area of human relationships to which everybody can easy
relate, and is perhaps one of the reasons why the news media,
in searching out the more sensational aspects of the effects of
child immigration, have often played upon the separation effects.
Indeed, one journalist asked for permission to do a radio programme
amongst members with the express view of adding sentimentality
by asking the question: "Now that it's coming up to Christmas
time how does it feel to be separated from your family?"
The worst excesses, of course, are where children were deliberately
kept from having contact with their families and without knowledge
about their brothers and sisters. The Society has encouraged people
to use the services of the Child Migrant Trust in making reunions
and searching out relatives in the United Kingdom. There have
been several where instances reunions have led to relatives coming
to New Zealand, or the members being assisted to go back for the
United Kingdom to reunions with their relatives there. Perhaps
the most painful disclosures made to older people are to discover
that after 30 to 40 years one has brothers and sisters of whom
one had no knowledge. Equally painful, have been the instances
where attempts have been made to get in touch with parents, usually
mothers, only to discover that the person died just shortly before.
9. DISCRIMINATIONA
rather severe "anti-British" sentiment was abroad in
New Zealand in the 1940s and 50s, fed by working class attitudes
that immigrants were being brought into the country to take over
their jobs. "Pom bashing" is still a recognised phenomena
in all of the antipodean former colonies. Thus, added to the insult
of being separated from family, and translocated to a foreign
land, was the injury of being treated as a foreigner. A common
tale was of young men being isolated in rural instances and treated
as undesirables or second-class citizens. Several members have
observed that the first thing they did was to make sure that they
got rid of their stigmatising accent, and took on the protective
colouration of being a local. Such defence mechanisms were quite
common in trying to prevent the discrimination which their host
county showed towards them.
10. LOST OPPORTUNITIESFinally,
the ignition question of lost opportunities struck a chord with
14 people. This category falls somewhere between a grievance and
a sadness. That is, people are not prepared to say that things
may have turned out any better or worse, simply that they might
have done things differently and, therefore, the outcome might
have been different had they had the opportunity. In this way,
it sums up some of the instances given in the other sections,
such as losing contacts with parents and family, whether educational
and vocational chances may have taken a different turn and in
particular, the vocation caused by uncertainty and doubt about
self-worth and self-identity.
SummaryAll of the views put forward here are supported
by personal evidence extracts of which are enclosed as Verbatim
Observations in Appendix II (and a fuller account as Appendix
III). The Committee is referred to those first person accounts
as very compelling and supportive evidence for the more global
accounts given as the outcome of the research project.The Committee
will no doubt be alerted to the research evidence from allied
fields particularly fostering and adoption which has considerable
congruence with the life situations of the people whose stories
are told here. There is considerable similarity in the way in
which confusion and doubt over identity, traumatic incidences,
separation and loss, are potential outcomes in the separation
of children from their families of origin. This kind of separation
and the effects on personality development, in life changes seems
to have a kind of "make or break effect". In the case
of BCM members it is quite evident that some have given in to
the deleterious effects of separation and anxiety, but on the
whole most people have shown a determination to compensate for
the adverse life chances that have met them. At the end of the
day, however, no matter how well they may have succeeded in material
things, there remains a nagging sense of doubt and anxiety as
to whether they could have done better. It is not surprising,
therefore, that many hold some moderate grievances about those
life chances and seek to have some redress of them.In conclusion,
the Society specifically asks the Health Committee to recommend
in its report to the House of Commons that:
all British rights be re-established, including
the provision of a free British passport to all British child
migrants living in New Zealand, who may require them, should they
ever wish to retire in the United Kingdom.
a free return air ticket to the United Kingdom
be provided for themselves and their spouses so they can find
and meet their parents and siblings.
compensation be paid to those former child migrants
for the trauma that they have endured, the loss of inheritance
rights and the chance to find their biological parents. The sum
of £10,000 (ten thousand pounds sterling) is a suggested
figure.
|
