Shurlee Swain

Marian Quartly

Denise Cuthbert

The Market in Babies: Stories of Australian Adoption tells the history of adoption in Australia from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its decline at the beginning of the twenty-first. The authors find that a market in babies has long existed. In the early years supply outstripped demand: needy babies were hard to place. Mid-twentieth century supply and demand grew together, with adoption presented as the perfect solution to two social problems: infertility and illegitimacy. Supply declined in the 1970s and demand turned to new global markets. Now these markets are closing, but technology provides new opportunities and Australians are acquiring babies through the surrogacy markets of India and the United States. As the rate of adoptions in Australia falls to an historic low, and parliaments across the country are apologising to parents and adoptees for the pain caused by past practices, this book identifies an historical continuum between the past and the present, and challenges the view that the best interests of the child can ever be protected in an environment where the market in babies is allowed to flourish. The authors of The Market in Babies are long-established scholars expert in the history of the family, welfare history and the making of public policy in Australia.

Stories of Australian Adoption

The Market In Babies

Dorothy Scott

The problem of child abuse seems to have escalated in recent years. Were there any 'battered babies' before the 1960s? Is the sexual abuse of children a recent phenomenon? The subject is often discussed in the media with little or no awareness that it has a long history. Confronting Cruelty examines our changing understanding of what cruelty is, the continuing neglect and abuse of children in our society, and the struggle between philanthropists, social workers and other professional groups for the right to identify and treat the children who are abused. Through the rich case records of the Children's Protection Society, Dorothy Scott and Shurlee Swain document a hundred years of child abuse, and explore how the community has responded to this ever-present social problem.

Historical Perspectives on Child Protection in Australia

Confronting Cruelty

Katie Wright

Kathleen McPhillips

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013– 17) was one of the largest public inquiries in Australian history and one of the most important investigations into child abuse internationally. It facilitated a national conversation about justice for victims and survivors and how to improve child safety in the future. Through the examination of practices in key social institutions, including churches, schools, sporting clubs, hospitals and voluntary organisations, it provided new understandings of the widespread abuse that many people had experienced in the past and it made recommendations for a national redress scheme. The Royal Commission also recommended sweeping reforms in policies, practices and institutional cultures. Offering valuable insights into the Royal Commission’s history and background, its social and cultural significance, and its implications for policy development and legislative reform, this book provides a wide-ranging analysis of the work of the Royal Commission and its social, psychological, legal and discursive impact. The chapters reveal not only the complexity of the matters that the Royal Commission was dealing with and the difficulties faced by the victims of child sexual abuse, but also the challenges of researching and writing about this sensitive topic. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies.

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Examining the Past and Shaping the Future

Margot Hillel

Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire. It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire. Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home ‘care’ held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm.

Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915

Child, nation, race and empire

Johanna Sköld

This collection examines the inquiries into the historical abuse of children in care which have proliferated across Western countries over the last twenty years, positioning them as a new area within the field of transitional justice. Drawing on the experience of care-leaver advocates, historians, archivists, museum professionals, social workers, lawyers and psychologists who have been involved in, or researched investigation, apology and redress processes in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden it traces the growth of the movement and identifies differences in the ways in which it has played out in specific locations. Writing from their experiences the authors are able to identify the opportunities and challenges which face the different professional groups who have been drawn into such work.

International Perspectives

Apologies and the Legacy of Abuse of Children in 'Care'

Julie Evans

Patricia Grimshaw

David Philips

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book focuses on the ways in which the British settler colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa treated indigenous peoples in relation to political rights, commencing with the imperial policies of the 1830s and ending with the national political settlements in place by 1910. Drawing on a wide range of sources, its comparative approach provides an insight into the historical foundations of present-day controversies in these settler societies.

Shurlee Swain

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