What You Need To Know About National Sorry Day

Today is National Sorry Day; a day to remember the generations of Aboriginal children forcibly taken from their families.

What is Sorry Day?

Ian Waldie / Getty Images

On May 26 every year Sorry Day events are held across the country to remember the mistreatment of Indigenous people.

It's a day for the nation as a whole to express its regret about the historical injustices done to Aboriginal people.

It is an especially poignant day for members of the Stolen Generation and their families.

The history of Sorry Day.

Simon Fergusson / Getty Images

On May 26 May, 1997 the first inaugural Sorry Day took place. It was in direct response to the tabling of the Bringing Them Home Report to parliament.

The report documented the systematic forced removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families by the Australian government between 1909 and 1970.

Today these people who were separated from family, culture and identity are known as the Stolen Generations.

The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, who tabled the report to parliament said, "This report is a tribute to the strength and struggles of many thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected by forcible removal. We acknowledge the hardships they endured and the sacrifices they made. We remember and lament all the children who will never come home."

Saying Sorry

Mark Graham / AP

The Bringing Them Home Report made 54 recommendations to the Parliament.

One of the key recommendations was that reparation be made to Indigenous people affected by policies of forced removal.

This included, "an acknowledgement of responsibility and apology from all Australian parliaments, police forces, churches and other non-government agencies which implemented policies of forcible removal guarantees against repetition restitution and rehabilitation and monetary compensation."

The then prime minister John Howard refused to say Sorry to the Stolen Generation, saying that one generation could not apologise for previous ones. Howard refused to recognise what he called "a black armband" view of the world.

Ten years after the Bringing Them Home Report then prime minister Kevin Rudd made a historic apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.

Who are the Stolen Generation?

Battye Library.

New Norcia Aboriginal children's home, WA.

The Stolen Generations is widely acknowledged as one of the darkest chapters in Australian history.

Aboriginal children have been forcibly removed from their families since colonisation. In 1814 the Parramatta Native Institute was the first Aboriginal children's home established in Australia. It was set up to 'civilise' Indigenous children.

In 1909 the establishment of the Aborigine Protection Act gave the Aborigines Protection Board sweeping controls over Aboriginal people, legally allowing them take children without consent or court order.

Removing Aboriginal children from their families continued into the early 1970s. Babies and children were torn from their families to be raised in institutions and non-Indigenous foster families. The aim was to assimilate Aboriginal children into mainstream white culture.

Children were denied knowledge of their Aboriginal heritage, were punished for speaking their traditional language and many never saw their families again. Most were were subject to horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of authorities.

Under international law the policies of forcible removal amount to genocide and there is not one Aboriginal family today that hasn't been affected by the Stolen Generations.

youtube.com

"We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians."

"We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country."

"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry."

"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry."

"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry" - Excerpt from prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology, 2008.

Child removals are currently at crisis point.

Ian Waldie / Getty Images

A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) last year revealed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are eight times more likely come into contact with child protection services than the rest of the population. It also found that Indigenous kids were 10 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care.

Since 1997 the number of Aboriginal children being forcibly removed has increased by more than five times, and it's estimated that at least 15,000 Aboriginal kids are currently in foster care.