A scheme which saw thousand of children sent to countries including Australia from Scotland has been dubbed “a shameful chapter” in Scotland’s history with officials admitting the system was “abusive”.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry found slave labour, sexual, physical and emotional abuse and neglect were common for kids shipped to Australia as well as Canada.
After the Second World War Australia became the most popular destination for child migration, and between 1912 and 1970 around 7000 children were migrated from the UK to Australia.
The Inquiry has been going on since 2018, with the first findings now published.
During hearings, chair Lady Anne Smith heard evidence from 40 child migrants, and officials travelled to Australia to speak with them.
Lady Smith called what she heard “shocking and distressing.”
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“I am satisfied the child migration system was abusive and it resulted in many children being abused,” Lady Smith said.
“Abuse began at the outset, unacceptable practices being inherent in the systems and procedures applied at the stages of selecting children and making arrangements for their migration.
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“It continued in receiving countries and institutions, where children were exposed to harsh and neglectful conditions, used as slave labour, and were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by individuals who owed a duty of care to them.”
She said she heard details of brutal and “sadistic” beatings with belts, straps, and other implements, such as reinforced straps and canes.
Children were sexually abused, including by men in holy orders, the inquiry found, as well as by members of a paedophile ring.
Girls had to assist in caring for the elderly, including elderly men suffering from senile dementia, it said.
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They had to wash their soiled sheets and they had to prepare dead bodies for burial.
Children were “neglected, denigrated, insulted, humiliated, and kept in a state of fear,” Lady Smith said.
They went barefoot even in winter, when they learnt to walk in fresh cow dung to warm their feet, it heard.
They had ”inadequate” food, no or limited access to health care and a “lamentable” education.
The report said kids were “depersonalised” by having limited possessions removed, hair shaved off and names changed.
She was sent to Australia as a child from the UK, and told her parents were dead – despite her mother and five siblings being alive.
She didn’t find out they were alive for 20 years.
Radzevicius was sent from a catholic children’s home in Glasgow to a similar home in Western Australia when she was just 10.
She detailed the sexual, physical and emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of nuns and other staff as part of the inquiry, in 2019.
She said as well as making her believe her mother was dead and she was alone, nuns also mocked and even injured her, with one smashing her head against a window so hard, the glass smashed.
Both the UK and Australia have since made official apologies.
