TWO peak Church bodies have apologised formally to the men and women who suffered after they were brought as child migrants to Catholic institutions in Australia.
But they have also challenged governments to match Church agencies’ assistance to the former child migrants.
The apology was made on March 22 by the Joint Liaison Group on Child Migration, representing the bishops’ national Committee on Migrants and Refugees and the executive of the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (ACLRI).
Liaison group convener, Christian Brother Tony Shanahan of Perth, made the apology at a sitting of the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee’s inquiry into child migration.
Br Shanahan said that every agency involved in child migration, from governments down, should admit that the program was flawed, with “suffering and dislocation in the lives of many”.
“Despite good intentions, and even if some of the hurtful consequences suffered by child migrants was unintended, it is both appropriate and necessary to apologise,” he told the inquiry.
As many as 7000 children were brought to Australia from Britain. Others came from Malta.
They believed they were orphans and national and state governments and the Church and community organisations with whom the children were placed here backed the program.
