Australia Apologizes to Mistreated British Children

From 1618 to 1967 over 150,000 British children were taken from their families and shipped to Australia in search of a better life. However, once there they discovered that this good life that they were looking for was a hoax, and all of them were sent to work on plantations and go to schools where often times they were abused physically and sexually. Definitely not what they were expecting to come out of this.
On Monday November 16, 2009, however, the prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, made history by apologizing for the mistreatment of these children. There was a ceremony in Canberra, in which the some 7,000 survivors attended to see the 40 year late apology take place.
Although they were making a big deal over their mistreatment, neither the British or Australian governments took any of the blame for themselves. They said “liability lay with state governments and churches that ran the institutions.” This is of course completely wrong, as it was the governments who initially took the children from their families, and put in to these terrible institutions that would flog the kids within an inch of their life.

http://news.discovery.com/history/australia-apologize-british-children.html

Steven M.
Period 3