The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Generations survivors or Stolen Children) are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed or separated from their families and communities by governments, churches and welfare bodies using official laws, practices and policies that legitimised compulsion, duress or undue influence. Each of the terms ‘compulsion’, ‘duress’ and ‘undue influence’ are defined in the opening sections of the Bringing Them Home report. The period in which these laws applied spanned from the mid-1800s to the 1980s, with variations by jurisdiction. Children were placed in institutions, missions, training farms and schools, foster care or adopted; separated from their culture, family, land and identity and many suffered abuse and neglect.
Not all people forcibly removed during this period will choose to identify as ‘Stolen Generations’ … Stolen Generations survivors have reiterated the importance of terminology and the distinction between children removed as part of the Stolen Generations, and those removed through legislation and policy in subsequent years and decades (The Healing Foundation, 2025).
The exact number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children children who were removed may never be known but there are very few families who have been left unaffected — in some families children from three or more generations were taken. The removal of children broke important cultural, spiritual and family ties and has left a lasting and intergenerational impact on the lives and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Affecting anywhere from 1 in 10 to 1 in 3 children, there is not a single Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community who has not been forever changed (AIATSIS website).
From 1995 to 1997 the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission undertook a National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families. In April 1997, the Commission’s findings were published in the Bringing Them Home report. It detailed the laws, policies and practices that allowed children to be taken from their families, and included many case studies that contest the claim made by many non-Indigenous Australians that the removal of children was in their own interests.
The report contained 54 recommendations to redress the wrongs done to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 28 years after Bringing Them Home, only 5 of the total 83 recommendations have been clearly implemented, 11 recommendations are categorised as a qualified pass, ten are classified as a partial failure to implement and 45 have failed to be implemented. The status for ten of the recommendations is unclear, and one is no longer applicable (The Healing Foundation, 2025).
Link-Up
Link-Up organisations around Australia provide family tracing and reunion services to members of the Stolen Generations, their families, and foster and adoptive families. These services include:
Link-Ups give priority to first generation members of the Stolen Generations who have directly experienced removal or separation from family and community, especially those who are elderly or have urgent health concerns.
Link-Ups also provide services to subsequent generations of family members who have been affected by intergenerational trauma related to removal, and to members of families and communities from whom children were removed.