The Bush Orphanage: Recollections of a British Child Migrant and the Truth About Australia's Human Trafficking Past

by John Hawkins

Between 1922 and 1967, up to 10,000 children, many as young as six, were literally plucked off the streets in Britaintaken from orphanages or snatched from the arms of single mothers or foster parents, and sent to Australia to help boost population. These children, with only a birth certificate (often false) as identification, with wrong names and birthdays to make tracing by their families impossible, were processed in the hundreds by corrupt officials within the Department of Immigration. What did these little children experience? Cruel institutionalization, loss of family and childhood, neglect and exploitation. brutality, and sexual assaults and rape. These victims lived their lives with intense feelings of fear, loneliness and confusion, low self-esteem, not knowing who their parents and siblings were, but not even knowing who they really were.

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2010

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Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book focuses on a shameful part of Australian and British history - the child migration scheme, post WW2. Initially, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish the book as I was reading some gut renching recollections of a small child living a terrible existence, living in emotionless vacuums of orphanages, the confusion and pain of being ripped away from the few who showed him love, a young boy crying himself to sleep on the voyage to Australia and so on. But it is worth persevering to read more of this part of our history. At times, the book veered too much into the authors detailed accounts of farming techniques as he worked farms in outback WA. But I was very impressed by the author's ability to acknowledge the wrongs and learn to forgive, thereby allowing him to move forward in his life and not be defined by the traumas of his early life. He has also researched the topic well, including evidence from primary sources.

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

didnt finish

[Fiona Ottley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly interesting, not as poorly written as a lot of these sorts of things often are. A part of Australian history I was totally unaware of.