The child migrant scheme

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's Australian tour started with a visit to the Child Migrant Monument at Fremantle. Maltese child migrants have been urging the government to erect a similar monument in Valletta as a reminder of the abuse and suffering they went through when they were taken to Australia under the Maltese Child Migrant Scheme in the 1940s and 1950s.

The scheme was intended to enable the Christian Brothers to teach children a trade in a Catholic industrial school in a country with better employment prospects.

In his biography of George Borg Olivier, Patriott Liberali Malti (pp 118-121), Henry Frendo recalls Dr Borg Olivier's objection to this infamous scheme which involved sending orphans and children of poor families to Australia on their own. The Boffa administration (1947-1950), at the request of the Church and Archbishop Michael Gonzi, subsidised this scheme. The Nationalist Party in opposition was not satisfied that the children's spiritual needs were being met and felt that they should not be sent to Australia and left to fend for themselves.

Dr Borg Olivier spoke against the scheme in Parliament. When the newspaper Lehen is-Sewwa (March 8, 1950) criticised him, he reiterated his objections. Then, in a confidential letter to PN leader Nerik Mizzi, Archbishop Gonzi complained that Dr Borg Olivier had dared "criticise the supreme ecclesiastical authority of this island" and had the temerity to tutor the Archbishop in spiritual matters.

Prof. Frendo adds that the Maltese children in the scheme ended up in remote places in Australia and were forced to work long hours. Many were victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by the Christian Brothers. The scheme was stopped in 1965 after a visit to Australia by then Minister Alexander Cachia Zammit. In Australia people were shocked when the truth was revealed. In 1999, the Australian Senate found the Christian Brothers guilty of abuse, published a book entitled Loss of Innocence and compensated the victims.

An interesting autobiographical account can be found in the book Fear of the Collar by Patrick Touher who recounts his eight years in Artane Industrial School, Dublin. The school, run on similar lines by the Christian Brothers, became synonymous with the systematic and widespread abuse of children in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. The story bears testimony to the courage and determination of the children who suffered continuous overwork, hunger, cruelty and sexual assault. Surely, the least we can do in Malta is to erect a monument as a tribute to Maltese children who went through the same ordeal and as a commitment that we shall not let similar outrages happen again.