*2010* ~ Year of the British Home Child in Canada

Ottawa — With a report from the Associated Press Published on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 11:27AM EST

Courtesy of The Globe and Mail National

Elsie Hathaway is glad that Britain will apologize for sending her and other poor children to former colonies, including Canada, to work as servants in homes and institutions where many became victims of abuse.

Now Ms. Hathaway, 93, of Plaster Rock, N.B., would like to hear a few remorseful words from her own Canadian government.

"There's a lot of things that they should have done that they didn't do," she said yesterday in a telephone interview. "They sent us over here thinking we were going to be used good when we weren't."

The British government said yesterday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would apologize for the child migrant programs that, for centuries, sent poor boys and girls as young as 3 to Australia, Canada and other countries. Many of the estimated 150,000 young émigrés ended up being physically and sexually abused.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will offer his own apology to the children and their descendants today at a ceremony in Canberra.

But, in Canada, where more than 100,000 of the children arrived between 1869 and the early 1930s, the government has no similar plans.

"It goes without saying that the treatment of these individuals, their experience in Australia, was different to that in Canada," Alykhan Velshi, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, said yesterday. "As a result, there has not been a widespread call among Canadian descendants of British home children for an apology."

However, said Mr. Velshi, there has been a request for greater commemoration of their experiences. Conservative MP Phil McColeman of the Brant riding west of Hamilton has introduced a motion that would see 2010 designated as the Year of the British Home Child across Canada. That is a initiative that Mr. Kenney personally supports, Mr. Velshi said.

Ms. Hathaway's parents died when she was 2. She was sent to Canada when she was 6 and her older brother was 10. The two children were quickly separated.

She was required to do housework before and after school and on weekends. "It was hard and it was lonesome," Ms. Hathaway said.

And her requests that she be permitted to write to her brother were refused. But, 12 years after the children were separated, an itinerant worker mentioned that he knew a boy with her last name. That led to a long-awaited reunification.

Ms. Hathaway is a proud Canadian and went on to live a happy life, giving birth to a large and loving family of seven children.

(Emphasis added by BHCD.)

Australian Prime Minsiter Kevin Rudd on Monday apologised to thousands of British child migrants transported to the country over centuries for their physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love and tenderness during their forced care.

“Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where often you were abused,” Mr. Rudd said, according to an ABC report.

Hundreds of people, many of them “Forgotten Australians”, had gathered in Parliament’s Great Hall in Canberra to hear both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull extending the apology.

The “Forgotten Australians” included the half a million children raised in institutions, orphanages and foster care homes through the last century and also about 7,000 child migrants. Many suffered ill-treatment and some sexual abuse.

Mr. Rudd said Australia was “sorry for the physical suffering, emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

He said that part of Australia’s history was filled with shame.

{StickyNote}Isn't it interesting how we take for granted the generosity of others? For 3 years, this site has through the financial kindness of TWO people. Now it's YOUR turn. Keep British Home Children Descendants alive through your donation to these ever rising expenses as we continue to make this free resource site which gives back the dignity of British Home Children! Take a moment and donate from the front page, even $5 helps defray costs. Through your donation, we can continue to make sure that each homechild is given their honored place in history and each descendant has somewhere to share and learn.  Thank you!{/StickyNote}