We continue to hear that Indigenous children are being removed from their parents in astronomical numbers, much greater than at the time of the Bringing them Home report was released in 1997. During 2017-18, Indigenous children were 11 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care and eight times as likely to be receiving child protection services. This has got to stop.
Many people are able to justify the numbers of Indigenous children removed from their families because they tell themselves that children are being kept out of harm’s way. But I would argue that this is not always the case. It is easier to believe that the root cause of these issues lay with us, rather than in the ongoing impact of trauma that we have endured and that has been inflicted upon us. It is easier to think that, for many of us, entering this system of “care” guarantees us a life of safety and stability. It is time to shatter a few of these supposed truths.
Skip to content
