Ngara Yura Program and Francis Forbes Society Webinar: Making the Past Visible: The Legacies of the Protectionist Legislation

28/10/2021

The Ngara Yura Committee, together with the Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History, invite you to attend their 2021 joint program: Making the Past Visible: The Legacies of the Protectionist Legislation.

Bringing Them Home: The Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, tabled before Federal Parliament in May 1997, found that between 1 in 3 and 1 in 10 Aboriginal children had been forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970.

As the report stated: “The histories we trace are complex and pervasive. Most significantly the actions of the past resonate in the present and will continue to do so in the future. The laws, policies and practices which separated Indigenous children from their families have contributed directly to the alienation of Indigenous societies today.

This Inquiry concludes with certainty on the evidence that while child removal policies were often concerned to protect and “preserve” individual children, a principal aim was to eliminate Indigenous cultures as distinct entities.” Bringing Them Home, pgs. 4, 31 & 273.

Join us for a conversation with Kinchela Boys Home survivors and Mr Richard Weston, inaugural Deputy Children’s Guardian for Aboriginal Children and Young People in NSW, Office of the Children’s Guardian, on the continuing impact of the ‘historic’ policies, truth telling and current government reforms to reduce the stark over-representation of Indigenous children in state care.

Presenters: Mr Richard Weston, Deputy Children’s Guardian for Aboriginal Children and Young People in NSW together with members of Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation

When: 1 November 2021

Time: 5:00pm-6:30pm

Webinar: Log in details will be forwarded

RSVP - If you would like to attend the webinar, please RSVP here by Tuesday, 26 October 2021

---