Impact Of Stolen Generations On Torres Islanders: Indigenous Studies

Historical Practice or Event from the Australian history and its Influence on the Lives of Indigenous Australians

Discuss about the Indigenous Studies for Torres Islanders Group.

In the post-colonial government era, it is seen that among the total indigenous people in the Australia, 90% people are aboriginal people, 4% are both the Torres Island and Aboriginal people and 6% people are the people of the Torres Strait Island. There are significant differences in their cultural, social as well as the linguistic customs among different Torres Islanders group and the aboriginal groups. Among the indigenous people, there are several regional groups also that are Ngunnawal, Nyungar, Nunga and Murrawarri people. It is estimated that the indigenous population in all over Australia is between the 318000 and 1000000. As the Aboriginal people have not adapted the modern culture, then the government has taken several steps to protect them, among those steps some activity helps them, and some events create problems for them. Some historical events related to the aboriginals are the land rights, stolen generations, and use of treaties etcetera. This assignment is intended to focus on the stolen generations and describes the effect of this event on Australian aboriginals. Stolen generation is the children of the Torres Islander people and aboriginals who were mainly removed by the government for protecting those children from abuse.

There are several events such as stolen generations, use of treaties, the tent embassy and land rights etcetera that fact Australian history in different times. This assignment looks after the stolen generations of the Australian history. As stated by Bruce & Hallinan (2011), stolen generation or the stolen children are those children belonging from the Torres Strait Islander as well as the Australian Aboriginal people who were removed by the state as well as the federal government agencies that are acting under the own parliament. Those children were removed from the period of 1905 to 1969, for removing the half-caste children. Along with that, some removals also occurred to the mixed race children and their discharges were happened in the year of 1970. The primary motivation behind this stolen generation was protecting the child; the people believed that Aboriginal people of the Australia might die while they will come into contact with the white people. The belief was that miscegenation among the Australian Aboriginal people and the white people might create the children who are mixed race in nature. As per the viewpoint of Lecouteur & Augoustinos (2013), the state and the federal government was removed those mixed race children to protect them after their white men father abandoned them because government think that those children may get abused and neglected by their family. After removing those children from their family, the government of the Australia send them to different institution and foster care. For authorising the removal of the child they also have established a act, which was Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act 1869. By implementing this bill, the state and the federal government remove their children from their Aboriginal mother (Povinelli, 2012). The Aboriginal protector was acted as the guardian of the mixed-race native child of the age group of 16 to the 21. There was not any accurate counting that how many children were removed from their original mother but it is estimated by conducting a national enquiry that almost 100000 children were removed from their mother. The report stated that in several cases the children were brutally removed from their family, even immediate after their birth when they were a baby. By implementing the Aboriginals Act 1905, they removed the children from their parents and in some cases they also force their parents to sign the legal documents that state that they are leaving the legal guardianship of those children (McHoul & Rapley, 2012).

Terrible Effect of Stolen Generations on Aboriginal People

The stole generation event has a terrible effect on the aboriginals which is also on-going. It is seen that due to that practice aboriginal people were facing a range of personal as well as social problems such as violence, dependence upon the welfare, mental illness and the alcoholism. However, there are more issues that the stolen children were suffered. According to Whitlock (2014), due to the stolen generation events, all of the children were forced to accept the white culture by forgetting their aboriginal heritage. It is seen that in some cases those mixed race children were adopted by some white families, but that also creates huge problems because it is tough for maximum white families to adopt those children who are half cast in nature. Therefore, in maximum cases, those children were faced abuse. Due to that incident, fear was raised among the aboriginals and makes them more rejection to adapt the modern culture because no mother wants that someone creates a distance between them and their children (Mellor, Bretherton& Firth, 2011). This removal program of children creates loneliness, low self-esteem along with the loss of identity among them. In the present time, those children are searching for their actual mother to meet them (Moss, 2011). This loneliness also creates a problem to find appropriate jobs and makes them alone in this world. Moreover, this stolen generation also creates a sense of the mistrust among both the children and their mother. It is seen that in most of the cases their children cannot know their exact cases so that in the later time they faces problem to make their legal documents. As stated by Veracini (2013), this incident also creates internal guilt among the children because wrong information is mainly supplied by the government and their substitute parents that create the huge effect in mind among those children. However, the stolen generation incident happened so many years ago and currently, those stolen children are searching for their birth parents, some of them have found their actual parents and some did not find them. This searching creates an enormous negative spark in those children who are full grown now. It has been observed that from those children most of the children were become alcoholic in nature and became depressed in their life. Some of them also attempted suicide and addicted to some dangerous drugs.

The emotional, as well as the social impact of those removals, were very terrible in several cases. However, the reason behind the removal was to re-socialise the mixed race children and helps them to integrate into the modern world, but it was noticed that removed aboriginals are not improving compared to the non-removed indigenous people. However, the removed children show the same results as compared to those who were not removed by the state and the federal government. As described by Ypinazar et al. (2015), it has been observed the children that were removed have the same mentality like the non-removed children, but they get more chances to complete the secondary education as compared to the non-removed children. This is because; in the early day’s Aboriginal people do not have the rights to complete any post-secondary education. Therefore, it can be said that the removed children are attaining the schools with the non-aboriginal students also. Therefore, having knowledge’s regarding the stolen generation can help the educators to understand the mind of the removed Aboriginal children so that they can provide those children an adequate education. In the early childhood schools and the primary studies different process must be followed to give education to children. Therefore, knowledge’s regarding the background of the children is most important to evaluate the right procedure to provide them with an education. According to Haebich (2011), for this reason, the educator must have sufficient knowledge regarding the stolen generation. Moreover, this event is important for the instructor to know because it helps the teacher to generate a calendar regarding different national and local events that are celebrated by the aboriginal people. Moreover, this event will also help them to understand the educational setting and course curriculum to involve those children in the educational setting. Therefore, by discussing the overall study it can be said, the overall stolen generation can help them to make an effective decision regarding the teaching method (Gray & Beresford, 2012).

Importance of Stolen Generations for Educators

It is seen that the people of the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islander have a deep sense regarding the community life, spiritually and respects towards the ancestors of them. However, the colonisation in the Australia rapidly and highly changes the lifestyle of the indigenous Australian people (Lawrence, 2010). It has been observed that among the total percentage of the indigenous children, 75% aboriginal children who are aged between the three and half years to four and half years of age so not attend any early childhood learning. Among the 25% people who participate in the early childhood education, 34% child attend the kinder garden, 30% adapt the community-based school. It is seen that different factors affect the early childhood learning of any child that are an addiction, mental health, poverty, violence in the family etcetera. It has been observed that in early childhood most of the indigenous people face more abuses as compared to the non-indigenous people. Therefore, to save the Aboriginal people from different types of violations, it is important to provide adequate educations, but it is not so easy to give education to the natives by the non-aboriginal teachers because aboriginals follow cultures in every perspective and it is difficult for non-aboriginals to know the culture of them (Lawrence, Montgomery & Monson-Wilbraham, 2010). Therefore, to provide them with an effective level of education, following culture is mostly important.

Different strategies are mainly adapted to provide education to the aboriginal people who include the transition to the program in the school, creating an active relationship and generating a productive culture to make collaboration among the community and schools. It is seen that Aboriginal guardian can be involved by facilitating different programs on the school grounds (Rowlands, 2010). It is seen all of the aboriginal parents comes to schools in almost regularly and actively participates in the personal learning plan of their children. For involving the parents in the teaching process of the children in the early childhood, schools adapt different methods so that they can maintain the attendance of most of the Aboriginal students. Moreover, to make teachers follow the culture of the aboriginals with more effectively, some of the schools that teach aboriginals involved their teacher in the collaborative study. Different schools havetaken several steps to provide quality teaching to their aboriginal students by making an active collaboration among the parents, community and the teacher. As per the viewpoint of Gray & Beresford, (2012), for providing skills and learning to the students in early childhood different school has adapted a successful teaching model such as the involvement of the community. As to provide effective learning to the aboriginal children, the role of their parent is very much important so that different schools makes learning flags and spaces more dedicated so that they can effectively welcome the parents of the aboriginal children.

Along with that, transition with various Aboriginal families helps the teachers to understand which teaching process is culturally appropriate so that they can teach their students according to the culture of them. It is seen in the Australia, the problem regarding the early childhood education of the aboriginal people are mainly occurring because of the less involvement of the parents (Rigney, 2010). It is seen that, in the earlier childhood, the participation of the parents is must because in home they are their child’s teacher. Therefore, the different strategy such as cognitive retraining, particular services, skills training etcetera is adapted in the Australia to provide education to the parents. Moreover, the Australian government has applied programs regarding the home visiting so that they can help the parents to deal their children so that they can provide adequate education to the children. However, there is one consideration that needs to be effectively followed, which is for understanding the exact position of the aboriginals and to understand the effect of the colonisation on them all of the programs need to be culturally strong. Moreover, while providing educations to the aboriginals, then the educators must have a good honour regarding the cultures, history, traditions and lifestyles of the indigenous people (Turner, Richards & Sanders, 2012). The educators must teach the students according to the culture of the indigenous people, and they need to have respect for the living standard of them. As stated by Ypinazar et al. (2015), the practical and developed outcome can be achieved by building the confidence in the mind of the parents by working with them more efficiently. Along with that, creating the sense of positive development in the community can help any educator to teach indigenous people with more effectiveness. 

Conclusions:

The above discussion describes the fact that from the beginning of the colonisation in the Australia different incidents positively and negatively affect indigenous people. Along with that, due to colonisation the culture, society and the community are also mixed with each other that create the stolen generation incidents. The government was tried to save those children from different harmful effect that they might face in their birthplace because they are not straight aboriginal people. In the present time, the government has taken several education schemes so that they can educate aboriginals. Different programs have taken by the government to make them adapted the modern culture, but somehow those programs did not create useful results. In the present times, different activities are initiated by the government to teach the Aboriginal people so that they can be literate and adapt the modern culture. It is seen that some of the indigenous population have accepted education efficiently and send their children to schools and some of them did not take that. Therefore, to make them educated, the different education-related program must be initiated by the government that must be initiated by considering the indigenous culture.

Reference List:

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