Today the news is filled with stories about the Australian Human Rights Commission’s report The Forgotten Children: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention (2014) and the Government’s reaction to its findings. Of the 800 or so children currently in mandatory closed immigration detention (including 167 babies born there) the AHRC notes ‘the negative impact that prolonged immigration detention is having on their mental and physical health’.

There is much I could say about the report, and much more I could add (none of it complimentary) about the Australian Government’s response. But instead, I want to talk about archives and records. Because Australia has been here before, and we have ample evidence to tell us what will happen next.

Over the course of the twentieth century our society did not treat many of its most vulnerable children well. Tens of thousands of Indigenous children were separated from their families, communities and land; many thousands of children from Britain and Malta were shipped to Australia as part of child migration schemes; and over 500,000 children spent time in institutional ‘care’ (orphanages, children’s homes and more). The three reports into the experiences of these children – Bringing them Home (1997), Lost Innocents (2001) and Forgotten Australians (2004) – were a lot longer coming, but their conclusions were eerily similar to the Forgotten Children report just released. They tell of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, neglect, harsh treatment, deprivation of food, education and health care.* There are even similarities between the ways in which identity was tied to state ward numbers in the past, and the children in detention today who say that their “‘boat number’ has become like our first name.”**

All previous reports acknowledge the immense importance of documentary evidence and archival records to these communities. As adults, people who were institutionalised as children want answers. What happened to me? Why did this happen? What records are there of my childhood? Are there any photos of me? What happened to my friends from that time? How do I get in touch with them? Where are the records showing I was mistreated so I can seek compensation? Where is the evidence I can use to take my abusers to court? Who was I then? Who am I now?

But from an archival perspective there is one key difference. Finding historic institutional records is difficult. Record keeping practices were often poor, collections have been moved, and organisations have merged or closed. Through mismanagement, accident or disaster (mostly fires and floods) the documentary evidence showing what happened to Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants and Stolen Generations has – at least until recently – been scattered, partial, difficult to discover and often difficult to access. For many it has been lost altogether.

Despite this, and likely because the events occupy the present not the past, the Forgotten Children report does not talk about records or archives. Therefore, those of us who work in archives, record keeping and related fields have an opportunity. More – we have a responsibility.

Records about ‘forgotten children’ in detention are being created today. There may also be many records that experience with comparable communities tells us are valuable but which are either not deemed relevant or have not been considered at all. We need to work to ensure good records are kept now, and we need to ensure those records are well documented, discoverable and accessible to those who need to access them – especially the subjects of those records – well into the future. We need to make sure the private companies involved in the immigration detention system are held accountable for the records they keep. We need to lobby to and through our organisations and our professional bodies so that our voices are heard.

Regardless of what happens next in terms of policy, hundreds of children are already in the system, and hundreds more have been through it. History tells us that for many their experiences will continue to affect them and their families into adulthood. They will come looking for evidence. Unless we want to fail another community of children we have to make sure that when they do the records they need to understand their past – our present – are preserved, discoverable and accessible.

We need to protect the evidence of what happened to these ‘Forgotten Children’ for the adults they will become.

 

* Much of this paragraph is based on Cate O’Neill’s paper ‘Accessing the records of the Forgotten Australians: learning from the human rights context to improve archival practices and achieve restorative justice,’ International Council on Archives Congress, Brisbane, Australia, 20-24 August 2012. Accessed online: http://ica2012.ica.org/files/pdf/Full%20papers%20upload/ica12Final00354.pdf (12 February 2015).

** The observed parallel between state ward numbers and boat numbers is from a tweet by Cate O’Neill earlier today.The quote about boat numbers is from page 73 of the AHRC report.