As someone once said, some of the most heinous crimes in history have been done for the best of intentions.
The forced child migration program is one of these crimes.
In a program that ran until 1970, individuals within the British Government were responsible for sending 130,000 poor children to Commonwealth countries, mostly to Australia. Allegedly children as young as 4 years old were told that their parents were dead, and they were then subjected to forced migration to children's homes on the other side of the world. They were told a fairy story - that they would get oranges and sunshine. Most got instead hard labor, life in institutions, and many suffered physical, mental and sexual abuse. And the parents whose children they were - what were they told? Apparently, many weren't told what happened to their children. Some were told that their children had died.
Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, uncovered the story in 1986, when a woman told her that she had been taken from a children's home in Nottingham and sent to Australia by boat when she was 4 years old. Ms Humphreys began investigating this story. She then decided to dedicate her time to uniting the families that had been separated.
What happens when one makes such a discovery?
Unsurprisingly, she ran into denial - from everyone. No one wanted to believe that their government could have done something like this. Sound familiar?
Like many whistle-blowers, Ms Humphreys ran into intimidation and her life began to be turned upside down. However, as she said, once one finds out something like this, one cannot turn one's back on it. Therefore she soldiered on as she and her co-workers worked to reunite hundreds of families.
Ms Humphreys wrote a book about her work, called "Empty Cradles." Jim Loach, a film maker and son of the famous film maker Ken Loach, read the book, interviewed Ms Humphreys, and decided that this story must be made into a film. He was able to convince Ms Humphreys, and "Oranges and Sunshine" is the result. While it was being filmed, Prime Minister Rudd of Australia gave a moving apology on behalf of Australia to the victims in November 2009. This allegedly compelled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown into making a detailed public apology in February 2010 for what the British Government had done to those children and their families. The victims of this abuse finally had their circumstances officially acknowledged.
As Arthur Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher, stated:
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
It appears that this process happened in this case.
Still trust your government to tell you the truth about what it is doing on your behalf?
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