UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
Sean O’Neill
July 20 2017
The Times
Britain should establish a compensation scheme for surviving child migrants who were taken from their families, deported to former colonies and suffered sexual abuse, Gordon Brown told a public inquiry today.
The former Labour prime minister said sending children to farm schools and austere institutions overseas was “a government-enforced form of human trafficking”.
Mr Brown told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that an official apology he made on behalf of the government to former child migrants in 2010 only dealt with some of the issues. More evidence had emerged about the scale of sexual abuse of children and the failure of Whitehall to address the problem, he said.
Mr Brown said the issue was even larger than the Jimmy Savile scandal, in terms of the numbers of victims, the period of time involved and Britain’s failure in its duty of care towards children sent overseas.
More than 130,000 children were sent overseas by charities and churches over more than a century. Some 2,000 who were sent to farm schools in Australia between 1948 and 1970 are still alive.
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