June unveiling for child migrants monument

The monument the government has promised to commemorate former Maltese child migrants to Australia is earmarked to be unveiled in June, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said yesterday.

The spokesman said a decision on where the monument will be located should be made in the coming days.

The former migrants have been campaigning for months for a plaque to mark the exploitation and abuse they suffered after being sent to Australia as children in the 1950s and 1960s. Last August, the government promised them a monument.

Many of the former child migrants had been abused physically and some sexually. In all, just over 300 Maltese children were sent to Australia - supposedly for schooling.