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children from their parents results in ‘forcing upon the former at an impressionable andreceptive age a culture and mentality different from their parents. This process tends tobring about the disappearance of the group as a cultural unit in a relatively short time’(UN Document E/447 1947).The Venezuelan delegate to the General Assembly summarised the views of thecountries which supported the inclusion of the forcible transfer of children in thedefinition of genocide.The forced transfer of children to a group where they would be given an education different fromthat of their own group, and would have new customs, a new religion and probably a newlanguage, was in practice tantamount to the destruction of their group, whose future depended onthat generation of children. Such transfer might be made from a group with a low standard ofcivilization … to a highly civilized group … yet if the intent of the transfer were the destructionof the group, a crime of genocide would undoubtedly have been committed (UN DocumentA/AC6/SR83 (1948) at 195).It is clear that ‘mixed race’ or ‘half-caste’ children were recognised as ‘children ofthe group’. that is as Indigenous children and not in any sense as children of no group oras children shared by different groups.Since colonisation of this continent it is quite reasonable to assume that a child born our of mixedparentage have never been categorised, if one could say that, as ‘part-white’ or ‘part-European’.Thus once it is known that a child has an Aboriginal parent, he or she is seen by the widercommunity as an Aborigine and will be subjected to racist and other negative attitudesexperienced by Aborigines (ACCA report submitted by the separate representative and quotedby the Family Court in B and R 1995 page 597).Especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relationships betweenEuropean men and Aboriginal women were often abusive and exploitative. Manychildren were the products of rape. The European biological fathers denied theirresponsibility and the authorities regarded the children with embarrassment and shame.As the ‘mixed race’ population grew many more children did not have a European parentat all, but merely one or more European ancestors. Aboriginal society regards any childof Aboriginal descent as Aboriginal.Aboriginal children were not removed because their ‘white blood’ made them ‘whitechildren’ and part of the ‘white community’. They were removed because theirAboriginality was ‘a problem’ (Chisholm 1985 page 80). They were removed because, ifthey stayed with ‘their group’, they would acquire their ‘habits’, their culture andtraditions.Plans and attempts can be genocideThe second issue concerns partial destruction as compared with total destruction ofthe group. Not all Indigenous children were removed. Yet it would be erroneous tointerpret the Convention as prohibiting only the total and actual destruction of the group.The essence of the crime of genocide is the intention to destroy the group as such and not