Home children to get apology from British PM
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologize Wednesday for his country's participation in a 19th-century program in which poor children were sent overseas from London's slums to labour in British colonies, including Canada.
Seven Canadians have travelled to London to hear the apology in Parliament.
They're descendants of the more than 100,000 juvenile migrants sent to Canada from Britain between the 1860s to 1939, when the program officially ended.
The churches and philanthropic organizations that sent the orphaned, abandoned and pauper children, usually aged between nine and 14, to Canada were "motivated by social and economic forces," according to the Canadian Genealogy Centre. Families in rural Canada "welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labour and domestic help."
But the conditions could be atrocious, some now in their 80s have argued, and children were exploited or abused.
"They told us we were going to the land of milk and honey," Elsie Hathaway, who was six when she was put on a ship after being given a Bible and a vaccination shot, told CBC News in 2001. "But I never saw it."
Instead Hathaway, age 85 when she was interviewed, ended up in a cramped shed for a week until authorities were satisfied that she and the other children didn't have any diseases. They were then given tags, put on trains and sent out to be exploited as cheap labour.
No apology from Canada
Stories like Hathaway's are what prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to apologize for his country's role in the so-called "home children" on Nov. 16, 2009.
Canada has not apologized for its role in the home children program.
After Australia's apology, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the Conservative government had no plans to apologize.
"This is not something that has really been on the radar screen," said Kenney.
"Obviously, this is a British policy and the British government is going to take its own decision in that respect," he said.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/0...n-apology.html
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologize Wednesday for his country's participation in a 19th-century program in which poor children were sent overseas from London's slums to labour in British colonies, including Canada.
Seven Canadians have travelled to London to hear the apology in Parliament.
They're descendants of the more than 100,000 juvenile migrants sent to Canada from Britain between the 1860s to 1939, when the program officially ended.
The churches and philanthropic organizations that sent the orphaned, abandoned and pauper children, usually aged between nine and 14, to Canada were "motivated by social and economic forces," according to the Canadian Genealogy Centre. Families in rural Canada "welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labour and domestic help."
But the conditions could be atrocious, some now in their 80s have argued, and children were exploited or abused.
"They told us we were going to the land of milk and honey," Elsie Hathaway, who was six when she was put on a ship after being given a Bible and a vaccination shot, told CBC News in 2001. "But I never saw it."
Instead Hathaway, age 85 when she was interviewed, ended up in a cramped shed for a week until authorities were satisfied that she and the other children didn't have any diseases. They were then given tags, put on trains and sent out to be exploited as cheap labour.
No apology from Canada
Stories like Hathaway's are what prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to apologize for his country's role in the so-called "home children" on Nov. 16, 2009.
Canada has not apologized for its role in the home children program.
After Australia's apology, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the Conservative government had no plans to apologize.
"This is not something that has really been on the radar screen," said Kenney.
"Obviously, this is a British policy and the British government is going to take its own decision in that respect," he said.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/0...n-apology.html
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