Stolen Motherhood: Aboriginal Mothers and Child Removal in the Stolen Generations Era

Anne Maree Payne

doi:10.5771/9781793618634

Summary

The removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families gained national attention in Australia following the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997. However, the voices of Indigenous parents were largely missing from the Report. The Inquiry attributed their lack of testimony to the impact of trauma and the silencing impact of parents’ overwhelming sense of guilt and despair; a submission by Link-Up NSW commented on Aboriginal mothers being “unwilling and unable to speak about the immense pain, grief and anguish that losing their children had caused them.”

This book explores what happened to Aboriginal mothers who had children removed and why they have overwhelmingly remained silent about their experiences. Identifying the structural barriers to Aboriginal mothering in the Stolen Generations era, the author examines how contemporary laws, policies and practices increased the likelihood of Aboriginal child removal and argues that negative perceptions of Aboriginal mothering underpinned removal processes, with tragic consequences. This book makes an important contribution to understanding the history of the Stolen Generations and highlights the importance of designing inclusive truth-telling processes that enable a diversity of perspectives to be shared.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2021
Copyright year: 2021
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-1862-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-1863-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 197
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 16
Chapter One: Motherhood, Truth-Telling and the Bringing Them Home Inquiry No access Pages 17 - 30
Chapter Two: Untold Suffering? Motherhood and Silence No access Pages 31 - 52
Chapter Three: “To the Exclusion of the Rights of the Mother” No access Pages 53 - 66
Chapter Four: “Strange Anomalies” No access Pages 67 - 76
Chapter Five: “Forcible Removal Through Employment” No access Pages 77 - 84
Chapter Six: Monitored Motherhood No access Pages 85 - 92
Chapter Seven: Sitting in Judgment? Views about Aboriginal Mothering No access Pages 93 - 116
Chapter Eight: For Their Own Good? Diverse Perspectives on Aboriginal Child Removal No access Pages 117 - 138
Chapter Nine: Beyond Silence No access Pages 139 - 160
Conclusion No access Pages 161 - 170
Appendix I No access Pages 171 - 172
Appendix II No access Pages 173 - 176
Bibliography No access Pages 177 - 188
Index No access Pages 189 - 196
About the Author No access Pages 197 - 197