Exclusive: 130,000 children sent to ex-colonies up to 1970s under ‘misguided’ programme

Child migrants from Britain sent thousands of miles from home to Australia in what was described as a “misguided” programme are to be given £20,000 (A$36,000) in compensation by the British government.

Under the programme, more than 130,000 children were sent to a “better life” in former British colonies, mainly Australia and Canada, from the 1920s to the 1970s.

The children, aged between three and 14, often faced a life of servitude and hard labour in foster homes. The majority came from deprived backgrounds and were already in some form of social or charitable care. Many ended up on remote farms, or in state-run orphanages and church-run institutions. They were often separated from siblings and some were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you

Abida Rahman Chowdhury

It was just a few years after the Liberation War in 1971. Caroline Amena Lauritsen was a child then. She does not remember how old she was back then, but her adoption papers say she was three years old.

With a group of children, all from the same “baby home” as hers, Caroline flew to Denmark on November 13, 1975. The only memories she has from her life back in Bangladesh are a few words—words that she finds hard to pronounce now.

“Amena no ghum” and “paani” are the only words that she remembers, she tells me, as we settle down for a chat in a cosy apartment in Dhaka and I ask her what she remembers of her life in Bangladesh, decades back. She also has one lasting memory of her best friend “Moti”.

“The first thing I named when I arrived at my parent's house in Denmark was their cat. I called it Pilai.”

Par Jean-Claude Perrier, le 01.02.2019 (mis à jour le 01.02.2019 à 15h14)

ANTHOLOGIE/FRANCE 11 FÉVRIER FRANÇOIS DE COMBRET

Proust l'irréductible

AFFICHAGE

PETIT

It was just a few years after the Liberation War in 1971. Caroline Amena Lauritsen was a child then. She does not remember how old she was back then, but her adoption papers say she was three years old.

With a group of children, all from the same “baby home” as hers, Caroline flew to Denmark on November 13, 1975. The only memories she has from her life back in Bangladesh are a few words—words that she finds hard to pronounce now.

“Amena no ghum” and “paani” are the only words that she remembers, she tells me, as we settle down for a chat in a cosy apartment in Dhaka and I ask her what she remembers of her life in Bangladesh, decades back. She also has one lasting memory of her best friend “Moti”.

“The first thing I named when I arrived at my parent's house in Denmark was their cat. I called it Pilai.”

Caroline Amena Lauritsen is now a woman in her late forties and is visiting Bangladesh in search of her lost family.

It was just a few years after the Liberation War in 1971. Caroline Amena Lauritsen was a child then. She does not remember how old she was back then, but her adoption papers say she was three years old.

With a group of children, all from the same “baby home” as hers, Caroline flew to Denmark on November 13, 1975. The only memories she has from her life back in Bangladesh are a few words—words that she finds hard to pronounce now.

“Amena no ghum” and “paani” are the only words that she remembers, she tells me, as we settle down for a chat in a cosy apartment in Dhaka and I ask her what she remembers of her life in Bangladesh, decades back. She also has one lasting memory of her best friend “Moti”.

“The first thing I named when I arrived at my parent's house in Denmark was their cat. I called it Pilai.”

Caroline Amena Lauritsen is now a woman in her late forties and is visiting Bangladesh in search of her lost family.

Are you distantly related to Beyoncé? You should probably find out.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

BEST FOR LITERALLY EVERYONE

23andMe

Health screenings plus a recent addition of over 1,000 regions makes it the most all-encompassing test out there.

06:56

«It pulled away the ground under my feet»

Legend: Audio "It has pulled away the ground under my feet" play. Running time 06:56 minutes.

06:56 min, from Regional Journal Ostschweiz of 30.01.2019.

She is one of about 700: The 37-year-old St. Gallen Tamara Kramer was most likely illegally adopted from Sri Lanka in Switzerland like hundreds of other children in the 1980s. These "Sri Lanka adoptions" have been a big topic in the media over the last few days and weeks - not least because the canton of St. Gallen published a report in a new window at the beginning of this week .

National adoption agency needed to meet Kazakh children’s needs, says Ana Uii executives

BY SALTANAT BOTEU in NATION on 29 JANUARY 2019

ASTANA – Creating a national adoption agency will make the process high quality and more transparent. The agency will also help to meet the needs of children in orphanages by placing them in competent families, said Ana Uii (Mother’s House) Public Fund Executive Committee Chair Anar Rakhimbayeva and fund Executive Director Bibigul Makhmetova in an interview with The Astana Times.

Photo credit: dom-mamy.kz.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev reportedly signed a protocol to establish a national adoption agency based on Ana Uii’s work.

Were infants stolen from hospitals?

In the 1980s, more than 700 Sri Lankan children were believed to have been illegally adopted into Switzerland. Also involved was Alice Honegger from Bollingen SG.

The canton of St. Gallen has now published a report on the Sri Lanka adoptions. The 74-page report, which is available on the Internet, should help to work up the controversial Auslandadoptionen, as it says in a statement of the St. Gallen State Chancellery from Monday. The canton wants to support those concerned in the determination of the correct information of their biological parents.

The caregiver Alice Honegger (1915-1997) had from 1948 for almost 50 years in Bollingen, which now belongs to the city Rapperswil -Jona, with official approval, foreign adopted children to Swiss parents. There should have been many illegal adoptions.

Infants stolen

NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is finalising a draft national child protection policy to hold organisations and their staff accountable for

both preventing and reporting child abuse, an analysis of the data drawn from a mapping of 9,589 children homes from across the country in 2016-17

shows that most homes lack a child protection policy (CPP).

An analysis of the data drawn from homes in 2016-17 shows that while homes in Chandigarh and Andaman & Nicobar Islands had no child protection

policy, in Chhattisgarh only 4.9 % homes were found to have a policy and in Manipur, the percentage was a poor 1.6%