NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
02 SEPTEMBER 2014
A former child migrant from Northern Ireland to Australia has told a public inquiry he was transferred with no idea where he was going and faced more sexual abuse after arriving in a Catholic home there.
Des McDaid, 70, said he was targeted by older boys, a lay teacher and members of the Christian Brothers religious order which ran the Clontarf institution near Perth in Western Australia. He thought he was an orphan until meeting his mother decades later who begged for his forgiveness.
He gave evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, which was established by ministers in Belfast.
He said: “The big thing I want you to remember is the helplessness.”
The Sisters of Nazareth order of Catholic nuns in Northern Ireland was responsible for the removal of 111 child migrants aged as young as five before and after the Second World War, some of whom faced grave sexual and physical violence after arrival. Another 20 were sent by other institutions.
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