NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
A man has told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry that he and other young boys being shipped from Northern Ireland to Australia had their faces painted black to make them look like Aborigines.
More than 100 children were shipped to Australia in the mid 1900s.
Now in his 70s, the man was sent there in 1953, from the Termonbacca children’s home in Londonderry.
He also said he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse.
The former child migrant said that on the boat journey to Australia, the boys were made to entertain paying passengers and “our faces were painted black to make us look like Aborigines.”
He went on to explain the impact of the abuse in later life: “I had no idea how to parent my children, or even how to cuddle and love them.”
‘Abuse’
The witness, who wiped away tears a number of times during his evidence, said he suffered physical and sexual abuse in Australia.
“I really don’t know what love is,” he said.
Another witness, who joined the Australian Airforce, told the inquiry that he still lives with regrets about not doing more to save young girls from abuse, while he himself was a child. …
Institutions under investigation
Local authority homes:
• Lissue Children’s Unit, Lisburn
• Kincora Boys’ Home, Belfast
• Bawnmore Children’s Home, Newtownabbey
Juvenile justice institutions:
• St Patrick’s Training School, Belfast
• Lisnevin Training School, County Down
• Rathgael Training School, Bangor
Secular voluntary homes:
• Barnardo’s Sharonmore Project, Newtownabbey
• Barnardo’s Macedon, Newtownabbey
Catholic Church-run homes:
• St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Londonderry
• Nazareth House Children’s Home, Derry
• Nazareth House Children’s Home, Belfast
• Nazareth Lodge Children’s Home, Belfast
• De La Salle Boys’ Home, Kircubbin, County Down
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