The Times of Malta
November 17, 2009
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091117/local/historic-apology-by-australian-pm
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| A memorial to the 310 Maltese child migrants, in the shape of a paper boat, was unveiled at the Valletta Waterfront last year. Photo by Chris Sant Fournier |
When Alfred, Joe, Maria, Rita, Anthony and Frances Cilia were sent to Australia in 1958, their parents thought they were heading to a better life. Instead the six siblings were in for years of heartbreak and abuse.
"It was like a concentration camp," Alfred Cilia, who was just 13 when he left his home in Vittoriosa, told Australia's SBS Radio.
The siblings recounted the years of abuse as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday apologised to the 500,000 "forgotten Australians" for the abuse and pain they suffered in his country.
"Sorry, that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry, for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost, childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places, where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work," Mr Rudd said.
He added: "We acknowledge the particular pain of children shipped to Australia as child migrants - robbed of your families, robbed of your homeland, regarded not as innocent children but regarded instead as a source of child labour."
The Cilia siblings were among 310 Maltese sent to Australia as child migrants between 1950 and 1965 as part of a scheme promising parents a better future for their children.
But for Alfred and Joe it did not turn out that way. "I don't even know how to read and write. They promised us an education and instead we were put to work, clearing up the bush and buildings and working in farms," Joe said.
Alfred added: "They didn't send me to school but to the farm, to feed the pigs, dig out trees and put fertiliser behind the tractor."
From the start, the journey seemed doomed. The Cilia children did not speak any English and found it hard to communicate with those on board.
Frances, the youngest of the six, was only four when she left Malta and does not remember much. But as their parents waved from the quay, she saw her brother Joe trying to jump off the ship.
"I did not want to go to Australia. Nobody did. We were all crying," Joe recalled.
When they got to Fremantle the siblings were in for another shock. They thought they would remain together but instead found three cars waiting for them. Joe and Alfred were sent to a home run by the Christian Brothers, the girls to a home run by the nuns, and Anthony to yet another place.
"You can imagine the heartbreak," Alfred continued.
Although the girls were taken to the same orphanage, Maria, who was nine, was separated from her two sisters when they arrived there.
"I remember thinking what could we have done wrong to deserve this," Frances said.
But Joe seems to be the one to have suffered the most, claiming he was abused by the Christian Brothers who were supposed to be taking care of him.
"We slept in a dormitory and when the Brother came in all the other children used to cover their faces. I did not know why, but when he came on my bed, I realised why they were all afraid," he said.
Joe, who was 11 when he moved to Australia, blames two Brothers: "They would call me into their room as if they wanted to speak to me. I used to cry for my mother every evening."
Mr Rudd apologised for the sexual abuse: "We look back with shame that many of these little ones who were entrusted to institutions and foster homes were abused physically, humiliated cruelly, violated sexually.
"We look back with shame at how those with power were allowed to abuse those who had none," Mr Rudd said in Parliament.
Maria does not remember being sexually abused but saw her younger sister, Rita, dragged off the playground by her hair.
While Alfred used to get letters from his parents, Maria said she never received any mail from home. Their parents desperately tried to get to Australia to be with their children, and although they managed the move, in the beginning were too poor to take care of their six children. But Alfred could no longer take the life at the orphanage and wrote to his mother.
"She went out to beg for my fare to Melbourne because the Brothers did not want to give me the money," he said.
But even when they were finally reunited, the horrors they went through still haunted the children. Communication was hard and the two older boys fought constantly.
Again, Joe was perhaps the worst affected: "I have been on antidepressants for years and tried to commit suicide many times. I have many scars on my arms and even tried to hang myself." He still dreams about the abuse and wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.
Although decades have passed, he is still afraid of priests' collars. When a Christian Brother wanted to apologise, Joe asked him to remove his collar.
"If I see a priest, I cross the road like crazy and it was not the first time I was almost run over by a car."
But he still goes to Church: "I do not have anything against the Church, just those two Brothers. If there is no hell, God should create one for them."
"It tore us apart," Alfred said of their years in the orphanages which drove him to gambling.
The siblings believe the apology came too late, especially since their parents have since passed away.
Maria said her mother used to cry on the steps of Parliament House to be reunited with her children. Unfortunately, her parents were not around to receive an apology and they were the people who really needed it.
Last month, Australian professor David Plowman, who arrived in Fremantle in 1953, when he was just 11, said that, although the apology was appreciated, many had already moved on.
"It will be interesting to see whether or not it will make much difference to those who have not," he said. Last year Mr Rudd apologised to aborigines who were taken from their families to be raised in institutions and white homes.
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