Isit with my friend Kay* on her old \u2018Queenslander\u2019 verandah, half-listening to the radio. It\u2019s that half-hour just before it gets dark in the tropical north of Australia. The fruit bats are waking each other up with their chatter and the curlews join in, screeching and rustling about in the dry leaf-litter below us on the lawn.<\/p>\n
Kay holds up her hand, drawing my attention back to the radio. I catch fragments of a report about complaints from Australians whose children and grandchildren were taken away from their families to live in institutions and in foster care. Some have since been emotionally abused and physically assaulted. It\u2019s shocking news, of course. Dreadful.<\/p>\n
Kay turns up the volume on the radio.<\/p>\n
Almost 30 per cent of children in care in Australia come from an Aboriginal background, the reporter continues: \u201cThe Stolen Generation \u2013 when Aborigines were forcibly taken away from their families \u2013 may not just be a shameful part of Australia\u2019s history\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Kay\u2019s face looks contemplative and sad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this seriously happening, in 2014?\u201d I wonder. Most Australians are aware of the Stolen Generation, when it was legal for the government to take Aboriginal children away from their families. But this forced separation, I thought, had ended decades before.<\/p>\n
The humidity has dropped and the sky is turning a grainy, dark blue. Even now, the stars are starting to blink, shining down on the corrugated iron roofs that are finally cooling down after the heat of the day.<\/p>\n
Kay doesn\u2019t look at me as she slowly starts to speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an Aboriginal daughter,\u201d she says. \u201cA foster child\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
For nearly ten years we have been friends but I have never heard her talk about her foster daughter before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is she now?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
Kay is quiet again. I regret being blunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one can live without their own culture,\u201d she says. \u201cAfter a few years, I made the decision. I decided that my daughter needed to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n