Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Restitution shall be provided to re-establish the situation that existed prior to the violations ofhuman rights and humanitarian law. Restitution requires, inter alia, restoration or liberty, familylife, citizenship, return to one’s place of residence, enjoyment of property (van Boven Principle12).Preservation of recordsSubject to certain criteria, government agencies and archives are currentlyauthorised to cull and destroy records they have created. It is essential that all recordswhich could enable any Indigenous person to trace his or her family, establish his or heridentity or locate his or her community or communities of origin be protected againstdestruction. The Stolen Generations National Workshop (1996) submitted that,… all records relating to Aboriginal people and their communities, including those that were keptby governments, churches and private agencies, are the property of the people and communitiesto which they relate. Thus no agency (government or non-government) currently holding recordsrelating to Aboriginal people has the right to destroy, alter or deny access by the owner to theserecords (submission 754 page 23).Because many record series do not identify subjects’ Aboriginality, the obligation toretain records which could reasonably be found to relate to Indigenous communities,families or individuals in effect requires all records of the relevant type to be retained,including those ultimately found to relate to non-Indigenous people. Non-Indigenouspeople removed from their families of origin in childhood have many of the sameconcerns about identity and background as Indigenous people. This does not mean that allrecords created by an agency need to be retained permanently. Two categories of recordsmust be permanently retained: those relating to all children removed from their familiesfor whatever reason and those known to relate to Indigenous people, communities andfamilies.Destruction of records prohibitedRecommendation 21: That no records relating to Indigenous individuals, families orcommunities or to any children, Indigenous or otherwise, removed from their familiesfor any reason, whether held by government or non-government agencies, bedestroyed.There is an urgent need to identify, preserve and index records now held bygovernments (initiating agencies or archives) and non-government agencies (such aschurches and former missions). This task includes the identification of destroyed or lostrecords and records series. The Inquiry commends the preservation and indexing work ofthe Queensland Community and Personal History Service as a sound model.The task of preserving and indexing records is a priority since assisting familyreunions is the most significant and urgent need of separated families. The S tolenGenerations National Workshop (1996) proposed to the Inquiry that the ‘resource