Monday, November 20, 2017

The Clearances

15,000 vulnerable children from Scotland’s children’s homes who were transported by charities including  Barnardo’s to Canada as part of the British Home Children programme that lasted from 1863 until the 1970s in a programme of forced emigration and cheap labour that lasted almost 100 years.

Many youngsters suffered rauma after being split from their brothers and sisters and in some cases told they were unwanted and even that their parents were dead.

Lori Oschefski, the founder of the British Home Children Advocacy & Research Association (BHCARA) explains, “The British Home Children were sent away to work, some never to see their families again. Our mission is to bring the true stories to light and to reunite families with the truth.” British Home Children were badly stigmatised. They were thought of as the dregs of the UK and given derogatory labels. Many carried that shame throughout their lives and many weren’t given an education, Ms Oschefski added.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-15-000-scots-children-shipped-to-canada-1-4616584
Children aged between six and 16 were transported with the younger ones adopted and the older boys and girls sent to work as indentured domestic servants and farm labourers. Some had originally ended up in care due to parents poverty or sickness. Only two per cent of the children sent to Canada were actually orphans, according to researchers.

More than 100,000 children were sent from the UK in total to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand


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