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10th anniversary is ‘bittersweet’

“It seems like only yesterday that the Human Rights Equal Opportunity Commission’s (HREOC’s) report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families was released,” Mr Calma said.

“It remains an important report and one that has played a vital role in validating the life experiences of many Indigenous peoples and making public their experiences of removal from family, and the ongoing, inter-generational consequences of such removal.

“However, it has also raised the ghosts of those experiences – the trauma, the grief and the memories - which left unresolved, can re-traumatise people and create a ‘limbo’ world in which they have not been able to go home,” Mr Calma said.

Commissioner Calma said the findings of the report – and the experiences that it told of – are as relevant today as they were in 1997.

“There is an ongoing need for a complex range of support services and programs to fully address the consequences of the forcible removal policies of the past, and to confine its impact to past generations,” Mr Calma said.

“I personally believe that we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what a more holistic, ‘community healing’ process could achieve – and of what it would look like.”

Commissioner Calma said government services should be expanded to support localised activities tailored to the needs of stolen generation members themselves. He said social and emotional wellbeing remained a great unmet need in the Indigenous community generally and represented an urgent challenge for all governments to ensure appropriate services were provided.

Mr Calma said HREOC remains committed to working with Indigenous communities in addressing the findings of the Bringing them home report.

“As part of our activities to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the report, we are publishing a magazine retelling the personal stories of stolen generations members and their families and have developed a range of web resources, including an interactive timeline, events calendar and collection of reports and submissions. These resources are available at www.humanrights.gov.au/bth.”

A range of educational resources is also being updated, including a timeline wall poster for primary and secondary schools and an updated Bringing them home DVD, which can be ordered online at www.humanrights.gov.au/publications.

Mr Calma said HREOC had also developed a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) as part of its commitment to Reconciliation Australia’s National Program of Action and to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. The plan can viewed at www.humanrights.gov.au/about_the_commission/rap/

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