Orphans of the Living: Growing Up in 'care' in Twentieth-century Australia

By: Joanna Penglase

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Synopsis: Drawing on interviews, submissions to the Senate Inquiry, and personal experience, this revealing documentation describes, for the first time, the experience of Forgotten Australians from the perspective of the survivors. In August 2004, Parliamentary senators wept as they presented the report from the Senate Inquiry into the treatment of children in care. Half a million children grew up in “care” in 20th-century Australia, and most often these children lived with daily brutal physical and emotional abuse in the sterile environment of an institution. Unraveling with tenderness, compassion, and intellect the seemingly explicable accounts as to how and why this occurred this study reveals the profound personal costs to the children involved—and the huge social and economic ramifications of past policies.