UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Sandra Laville
Sunday 12 June 2016
Men and women transported to Australia and Canada in the child migrant programme are being encouraged to give evidence about the sexual abuse they suffered to Britain’s public inquiry into historic and ongoing child abuse.
The Goddard inquiry, set up in 2014 to examine the abuse of children in public and private institutions, is urging those who may have been victims before and after being removed from the country to come forward as a priority.
Judge Lowell Goddard is fast-tracking her investigation into the sexual abuse of child migrants from the UK because of the advanced age and possible ill-health of those who are still alive. A preliminary hearing will take place in July.
They were part of a programme that saw up to 150,000 children aged three and over taken from their families and transported to Australia, Canada and other Commonwealth countries between 1920 and 1970. A parliamentary report in 1998 said the abuse suffered by some of those in Australia was widespread, systematic and exceptionally depraved.
Frances Swaine, a lawyer from Leigh Day, who has worked with child migrants for many years, said: “It is hugely important that the Goddard inquiry is looking at this. Thousands of child migrants suffered sexual abuse. They have never had their voices heard in a judicial setting in the UK.”
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