{"id":1199,"date":"2016-08-02T17:18:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T22:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chgs-blog.org\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2016-08-02T17:18:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T22:18:27","slug":"stolen-generations-still-being-stolen-a-snapshot-of-australias-continued-persecution-of-indigenous-peoples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/stolen-generations-still-being-stolen-a-snapshot-of-australias-continued-persecution-of-indigenous-peoples\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian \u201cStolen Generations\u201d: Still Being Stolen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early March, 10-year-old Ariana Mangolamara committed suicide in the Aboriginal community of Looma in Western Australia.\u00a0 Her death wasn\u2019t unique: she wasn\u2019t the first in her community or even her family to commit suicide.\u00a0 However, her story gripped international headlines and prompted a soul-searching analysis of why the plight of Australia\u2019s indigenous peoples is worse than ever, despite formal political recognition and efforts to help.\u00a0 Many of these efforts seem designed to destabilize Aboriginal communities through systematic neglect, the breaking of families through child removal and a callous disregard for culturally viable strategies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The fact is that Australia has a staggering 15,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care, making them nine times more likely to be removed from their homes than non-indigenous children.\u00a0 By contrast the Stolen Generations, who were removed and forcibly assimilated into settler society from the 1930\u2019s to the 1960\u2019s, only claimed around 10,500 children.\u00a0 Historically, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have been subjected to genocide and many groups have been completely destroyed, including the entire native population of Tasmania.\u00a0 Activists have had good reason to advocate that the genocide continues through child removal and systematic neglect of indigenous communities.<\/p>\n

\"2000\"
Students at one of the schools in Looma. (From the Guardian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the child\u2019s safety is often a legitimate concern, lack of cultural sensitivity and outright racism also play a role.\u00a0 Child removal is often the first action taken when a problem is discovered and families rarely receive other help or a chance to regain custody.\u00a0 Radically different cultural practices in child-rearing are often misinterpreted as neglectful by western criteria. Indigenous Australians were among the most dehumanized and persecuted ethnic groups in the British Empire.\u00a0 Open racism is still prevalent today, especially in rural areas where Aboriginal populations are most concentrated.\u00a0 As late as the 1980\u2019s, prominent Australians were on TV promoting mass sterilization of Aborigines who refused to be assimilated into mainstream society.<\/p>\n

Although Ariana had been removed from her home, she was one of the 67% of children who were placed with relatives or in other Aboriginal homes.\u00a0 The initiative to keep removed children as close to their family and culture as possible was spear-headed by Grandmothers Against Removals, an activist group made up of survivors of the Stolen Generations dedicated to keeping the current \u2018stolen generation\u2019 from happening.\u00a0 Keeping removed children within context of their culture has been shown to improve their ability to recover from the trauma of dislocation, but their new communities often lack even basic mental health services.\u00a0 Even though Ariana displayed symptoms of depression and it was known that her 12-year-old sister had committed suicide before she was removed, no professional help was given to her.\u00a0 The remoteness and lack of infrastructure in many Aboriginal communities is a prime reason for the sharp rise in suicides among young people in the last 20 years.\u00a0 Suicide rates have corresponded with the spike in child removals which has itself inhibited efforts to resolve prevalent social problems within indigenous communities.<\/p>\n

A survey of Ariana\u2019s community found that 17% of the men were convicted sex offenders.\u00a0 Her father had been incarcerated for domestic assault on her mother.\u00a0 Aboriginal women are 35 times more likely to be hospitalized for assault than non-Aboriginal women and 11 times more likely to be killed.\u00a0 Alcohol and other chemical substitutes for hope ran rampant through her community.\u00a0 Kids have been seen playing with nooses and heard talking about death and suicide, and there is no wonder that the adult suicide rate is 4 to 5 times higher than among non-Aborigines.\u00a0 Despite lower rates of sexual abuse, Aboriginal children are twice as likely to contract an STD due to lack of access to healthcare.\u00a0 Although Ariana found a safe home with relatives, the accumulated harm of years of abuse, neglect and universal despair was not adequately addressed.<\/p>\n

These issues have not been completely ignored by the government, though.\u00a0 After Prime Minister Kevin Rudd became the first leader to acknowledge and apologize to the Stolen Generation, he launched a \u201cClosing the Gap\u201d initiative in an effort to reduce inequality between Aboriginal and larger Australian populations.\u00a0 Goals such as reducing infant mortality and increasing literacy are currently on track, but employment and life expectancy gaps remain wide.\u00a0 A parallel \u201cClose the Gap\u201d public awareness campaign was launched by Aboriginal communities to voice their opinions and concerns on how the initiative should proceed. Despite this, cultural norms and differences between Aboriginal and Western societies have often been a hindrance to government initiatives.\u00a0 Indigenous communities rarely have a stake in proposed programs and local leaders are often over-ruled or ignored.\u00a0 A long and continuing trend of abuse and frustration have left many Aborigines mistrustful of government assistance.<\/p>\n

Prejudice against native Australians remains strong, especially in the communities who have the closest and most direct impact on Aborigines.\u00a0 The devastation of their lifestyles and communities are as likely to be viewed with contempt as compassion.\u00a0 Until these attitudes are changed, efforts to \u201cClose the Gap\u201d, protect children and restore vitality to communities will continue to fall short.<\/p>\n

Jamie Anderson is a senior at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Global Studies.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early March, 10-year-old Ariana Mangolamara committed suicide in the Aboriginal community of Looma in Western Australia.\u00a0 Her death wasn\u2019t unique: she wasn\u2019t the first in her community or even her family to commit suicide.\u00a0 However, her story gripped international headlines and prompted a soul-searching analysis of why the plight of Australia\u2019s indigenous peoples is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2081,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[214,4000,69492],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-australia","tag-indigenous-people","tag-jamie-anderson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}