Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Helen Siggers, a former nursing sister who is now Director of the Aboriginal educationcentre at Monash University in Victoria, was in a position to compare Aboriginal bridgingcourse students who had been removed with those who had not (evidence 140). She haddealt with 80 students, ten of whom had been removed as children. She observed that thosenot removed were ‘together as people’, ‘knew about their culture’, had ‘strong self-esteem’and ‘positive [intimate] relationships [of some duration]’. On the other hand, those who hadbeen removed had experienced ‘years of self-destructive behaviour’, an ‘intensity ofaddictions’, ‘cardiac problems, diabetes and psychological problems’, ‘gaol sentences’ and atendency to move ‘from one partner to another’. With respect to their progress in thebridging program, those not removed ‘accelerated in their learning’ whereas those removed‘were held back because they were still dealing with all the emotional stuff’. Those whowere not removed were more likely to complete their planned university degrees.Michael Constable, a community health nurse in Ballarat, also observed a‘higher relationship turnover’. He told the Inquiry that he observed the stolengenerations, on reaching adulthood, to be ‘chronically depressed’ (evidence 263).The effects of abuses and denigrationIn institutions and in foster care and adoptive families, the forcibly removed children’sAboriginality was typically either hidden and denied or denigrated. Their labour was oftenexploited. They were exposed to substandard living conditions and a poor and truncatededucation. They were vulnerable to brutality and abuse. Many experienced repeated sexualabuse.The social environment for all Indigenous Australians and the physical environmentfor many remain unacceptable. It is pervaded by racial intolerance and a failure to deliveradequate or appropriate basic services from housing and infrastructure to education andhospital care. Ill-health, poverty and unemployment are worse than third world levels. The1991 NSW Aboriginal Mental Health Report (Swan and Fagan 1991) identified the factorsincreasing the vulnerability of the Aboriginal community to mental ill-health.[I]nstitutional and public racism and discriminationthe continuing lack of opportunities in education and employmentpoverty and its consequences including stress and environments of normative heavy drinkinginter-cultural differences in norms and expectationsproblems associated with long family separations and the issues associated with family reunionpoor physical environmentshigh levels of chronic illness and high rates of premature death (Swan and Fagan 1991 page 12).This makes it almost impossible to pinpoint family separations as the sole cause ofsome of the emotional issues by which Indigenous people are now troubled (ProfessorErnest Hunter evidence 61, Michael Constable evidence 263). However, childhoodremoval is a very significant cause both in its distinctive horror and in its capacity to breakdown resilience and render its victims perpetually vulnerable. Evidence to the Inquiryestablishes clearly that the childhood experience of forcible removal and institutionalisationor multiple fostering makes those people much more likely to suffer emotional distress thanothers in the Indigenous community.The psychiatric report concerning one witness to the Inquiry illustrates thepersistence of vulnerability.