Other policies attempted to ‘breed-out’ Indigenous Australians by pairing an Indiginous individual with a white partner. These ‘half-castes’ where again viewed as inferior and often removed from government reserves and discouraged from interacting with Indigenous people, including their parents, in an attempt to remove the Indigenous culture from the general populace. These policies have created an enormous effect on the Indiginous experience of health. It has led to the loss of culture and identity to an entire generation of Indigenous people and therefore a severe lack of understanding of health amongst those affected. Further, many Indiginous Australians today still have deep seeded mistrust of Western medicine because of these historical factors.
Welfare Is Killing Indigenous Australians As part of 'the gat' program (group of Australian organisations working together to achieve health and life expectation equality for Australia's Indigenous people) welfare was first introduced to Indigenous people in 1959. Since, it has only caused further problems to the livelihood of these traditional land societies particularly vulnerable to these funds. Little progress has been made in fixing the dire conditions on Indigenous lands, where approximately 75,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders languish on welfare. This is where Indigenous dysfunction; literacy, poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence is concentrated. Welfare essentially prevents indigenous people from seeking jobs
Introduction A little over a decade on from the monumental Bringing Them Home (HREOC, 1997) report recommending an apology, the Australian Labor Government, headed by Kevin Rudd, apologised to the Stolen Generations on behalf of all Australians. The 13th of February 2008 was a day of reflection for the nation as Rudd lamented past government policies legitimising the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families during the early to mid twentieth-century (Rudd, 2008). Rudd’s pledge to move “forward with confidence to the future,” and to instigate the “healing of the nation,” (Rudd, 2008, pp.167) was well received by many Australians as a first step towards reconciliation and tackling important issues pertinent
The 1997 Bringing Them Home Report documented the systemic removal of thousands of Indigenous Australian children from their families. (Atkinson) The removal of Indigenous children was widespread throughout Australia over a 40-year period from the 1930s. (Young, Zubrizycki) The Bringing Them Home Report which was produced by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission revealed widespread and systemic suffering of the Australian Indigenous community placed in institutional care. (Atkinson, NSW Department of Community Services) The report revealed horrific damage inflicted on the most vulnerable people in our society, Indigenous children. Removal was through official government policy of assimilation of Indigenous people.
By integrating ‘half casts’ into white society, policy makes hoped they would marry white partners and eventually, over time, diminish any traces of Indigenous culture and identity. A graphic example of the impact of child removal policies can be seen through its impact on Malcolm Smith and his family. Malcolm Smith, a child of the Stolen Generation, was taken away after stealing a push bike, the state saw his parents ‘unfit’ and continued to tear apart their once big family. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Report of the Inquiry into the Death of Malcolm Charles Smith (1989) 1-5 stated
Colonialism consists in such things as resource exploitation of Indigenous lands, residential school syndrome, racism, expropriation of lands, extinguishment of rights, and welfare dependency. What makes colonialism real in the lives of First Nations people is when these impositions become causes of harm to them as people and as communities. When oppression is experienced over centuries like this, it negatively affects people’s minds, bodies, and souls. As Eduardo Duran
This is a dangerous trend that can inhibit effective law enforcement and ultimately endanger the lives of all persons who depend on law enforcement for protection. Racial profiling is a human rights violation that can affect Americans in virtually every sphere of their daily lives and often has an impact that goes far beyond the initial incident. As the testimonies summarized in this report reveal, this seemingly abundant human rights violation leaves its victims feeling humiliated, depressed, helpless, and angry. Furthermore, racial profiling reinforces residential segregation, creates fear and mistrust, and engenders reluctance in reporting crimes and cooperating with police officers. In these times of domestic insecurity,
Background, 1788 – 1837 The infamous massacre of Aborigines at Myall Creek in Northern New South Wales in June 1838 occurred in the fifty first year after the British began their penal colony near Sydney cove. The encroachments of the Europeans brought years of devastating strife to Aboriginal peoples, who had lived on this country for thousands of years. They suffered terribly, as they were exposed to diseases to which they had no immunity and they died in large numbers. They were driven from their lands, which had sustained them physically and spiritually. Demoralized and debauched, they were coming to be seen as a doomed race.
The Impact of Structure on the Roma Roma remain to date the most persecuted people of Europe. Almost everywhere, their fundamental human rights are threatened. Racist violence targeting Roma is widespread in the last years. Discrimination against Roma in employment, education, health care, administrative and other services is observed in most societies, and hate speech deepens the anti-Romani stereotypes typical of public opinion. (ERRC, 2001:5) For hundreds of years, the Roma people have been marginalised from European society due to structure in the form of their ethnicity and traditional practices, leading to high crime and poverty rates.
The Indian Adoption Project began in the late 1950’s and lasted throughout the 1960’s. It allowed for the removal of Indian children from their homes and families, and to be placed within the non-Native community through adoption, foster care and orphanages simply because “the white man knew better” (Adopting a Native American Child). The Native American community viewed this project as “the most recent in a long line of genocidal policies toward Native communities and cultures” (Herman). Erdrich opens her story by displaying these events from the view of a child hunted, Buddy. The trauma and fear Buddy feels, knowing that at any moment he will be stolen away from his mother, is shown through his nightmare of being found hiding in a washing machine.