It is not “only recently” that the details of the abuse of child migrants has become public (Report, 28 February). In 1988, the Observer exposed the fact of child migration to Australia and that it took place as late as 1967. In 1989 ITV broadcast, at peak time, the documentary Lost Children of the Empire that clearly set out the abuse, including sexual abuse, of child migrants that had taken place in the institutions to which these children were sent. So nearly 30 years has now passed since this horrific abuse was widely known and the current inquiry – less time than between the events and their first exposure.
So why is the process of holding people to account so glacial? The answer, as ever, lies in the imbalance of power between the abused and the official system that enables this abuse to occur. When, with Margaret Humphreys of the Child Migrant Trust, we made Lost Children of the Empire, we were inundated by child migrants wanting to tell their story – at long last someone was prepared to listen to them – but met with denial and obstruction from all those involved in the process, including the charitable organisations involved. In the long years that have since passed, it has only through the hard and relentless work of organisations such as the Child Migrants Trust, working with the child migrants to give them a voice, that progress towards accountability has been made. Too late, sadly, for many of the child migrants who first stepped forward to expose this appalling tragedy.
Joanna Mack
Producer/Director, Lost Children of the Empire
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