Indigenous Studies Reflection on the Stolen Generation

Throughout this semester my learning experiences have been very significant towards my awareness of the Indigenous population. My personal perspectives have been impacted throughout this semester drastically also. This unit has helped increase my awareness toward the Indigenous people of Australia and the immoral battles they where put through in the past. My response to this unit of study was completely different to what I thought it would have been. My emotions have been triggered considerably throughout this semester. What really touched me was hearing about the horrific measures Indigenous children were put through. Getting taken away from their families purely because of their Aboriginal background, being mistreated, and having their innocents corrupted really upset me. Another aspect of history that really got to me was the story Rebecca told the class. The history on ‘closed adoptions’ that Rebecca was personally apart of.

Sitting in the lecture theatre and taking in all the information that was put forward, really opened my mind up to a lot of the horrific issues surrounding the Indigenous people of Australia. When first being exposed to the Stolen Generation, I didn’t know how to feel toward innocent children being taken away from their homes. This was done by social workers and police officers that would invade the homes of the Indigenous people for the removal of their children (Gerrett 2013). It was concluded in 1989 the national Indigenous survey on health found almost half (47%) of Aboriginal children had been forcibly removed from both their parents (Gerrett 2013). This left me in distress, that something like this could happen to innocent children and their families. When saying this, I’m not implying that there are no children in the Indigenous community that weren’t mistreated, but this too happens in other racial communities. It is seen that incidence of sexual abuse of minors is far more worrying in other communities other than the