NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV
Published Monday, 01 September 2014
Public hearings on child migrants sent from Northern Ireland institutions to Australia have begun on Monday as the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry resumes.
The hearings will last for three weeks, during which evidence will be heard from 50 people who are now living in Australia.
They are all former residents of institutions in Northern Ireland and were sent to the country as part of a child migration programme.
The inquiry is being chaired by retired High Court judge Sir Anthony Hart.
In his opening remarks he said: “In their witness statements, many of those who will give evidence describe their experiences after they arrived in Australia in shocking terms, setting out in graphic detail their descriptions of the severe hardships, and grave sexual and physical violence, to which they say they were subjected as children in the institutions to which they were sent in Australia.”
The inquiry is limited to what happened to children in institutions in Northern Ireland and does not have the power to investigate what befell migrants in Australian institutions.
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