As early as 1914, excessive labour required from service children was a matter of concern to Boarding Out Committees:
'The Committee commented that service children should be visited as regularly as other children boarded out by the State, as reports are received about the long hours worked on farms…(Minutes of the Perth and District Boarding Out Committee, 4 August 1914)'
The issue of 'stolen wages' has received some attention in Australia, however this has so far been confined to wages that were not rightly paid to Indigenous people. A Western Australian government taskforce investigated this issue in 2007, and the Stolen Wages Reparation Scheme was established in WA in 2012.
There were no recommendations in the Forgotten Australians report relating to unpaid monies for children and young people who worked in institutions where they were in care, or who were under employment contracts while wards of the state.
Last updated:
07 December 2021
Cite this: http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/wa/WE00820
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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