Jim Loach's debut film deals with child abuse
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press – Sun Oct 31, 12:01 pm ET
ROME- The first feature film by Jim Loach looks at the true story of the deportation of thousands of children from Britain to Australia and the abuse they suffered. The director said he sees it as a tale of survival and the indomitable human spirit.
Loach, English director Ken Loach's son, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he was fascinated by the woman who uncovered the scandal and is at the center of the movie: a social worker who worked doggedly to reunite families and bring authorities to account. He became fascinated by the personalities of the former child migrants, some of whom he met, and questions of identity.
Ultimately, he felt the story needed to be told.
"The story itself was shocking and appalling and amazing," Loach said at the Rome film festival, where "Oranges and Sunshine" was presented. "We couldn't believe that it had happened and we were amazed that so little had been said about it."
Under the program, between 1920 to 1960s, an estimated 150,000 British children were sent to Australia and other distant colonies. The program was intended to ease pressure on British social services and provide the children with a fresh start ("oranges and sunshine"), but many of them ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused, or were sent to work as farm laborers. FULL STORY
This certainly happened here too-White Children were the FIRST Slaves
Don Jordan and Michael Walsh are the English authors of White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America (New York, New York University Press, 2008)There, you will learn that those white “indentured servants” were in fact slaves just as much as the blacks, enslaved in conditions just as bad, and that white slaves were imported into this country almost as long as blacks. Indeed, the first slaves imported into the American colonies were 100 white children unaccompanied by parents. They arrived during Easter, 1619, four months before the arrival of a much more infamous shipment of black slaves. (P. 76)
Sometimes, the slavers literally tore children from the arms of their parents. White Cargo tells us: “. . . No child from either the town or the surrounding countryside seems to have been safe from the merchants’ agents. They operated openly and with impunity. When parents who had lost their children came looking for them in the town, their elation at finding them still incarcerated awaiting embarkation was short lived on their discovery that they were powerless to bring their children home. . . .” (Pp. 237-38)
The kidnappers were paying off the local judges. Most parents could not afford to pay for the food their kiddos had consumed while prisoners. That’s right! The parents had to pay for that. They had to watch in impotent horror as their children were marched aboard slave ships and sent away to the colonies forever.
Sounds exactly like Children's "Protective" "Services" doesn't it?
Ashley Schmidt said her teen years were a blur, and if you ask the now 21-year-old what movies or bands she liked, she draws a blank.
More than two-thirds of social workers experience mental or emotional instability as a result of their job, according to a British Association of Social Workers (BASW) poll.