UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
March 4 2017
The Times
A blacklist of institutions in Australia unfit to house British child migrants was torn up by the government under pressure from one of the royal family’s favourite charities, documents submitted to a public inquiry reveal.
The Fairbridge Society, which is now part of the Prince’s Trust, ran isolated farm schools at which children suffered physical and sexual abuse and threatened ministers with “a first-class row” if they tried to curb child migration to the colonies in the 1950s.
The government backed down and allowed Fairbridge, which was financially supported by the royals, received regular royal visits and had the Queen’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, as its president, to send hundreds more children to Australia.
The story of how the charity used its privileged position to lobby ministers is chronicled in papers disclosed to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which is examining the treatment of child migrants in the postwar period. …
Elderly men and women have told how they were abused at state and religious orphanages in Britain before being selected for migration or volunteering to go to Australia to escape.
Many were from poor families struggling after the war or were children whose unmarried mothers had no income to care for them. They were handed over to councils, religious orders and seemingly respectable charities. Thousands were sent abroad without their parents ever being informed.
One man, who asked for anonymity, said that he had been beaten and abused by Catholic nuns and priests in Britain before he was sent to Australia aged 12 in 1953 and suffered further abuse at the hands of the Christian Brothers. He said: “I’m 75 now but I think about these things every day. The beatings were pretty horrific and for me it will never go away.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.