**Australia’s PM is to make a national apology to the “forgotten Australians” - about 500,000 people who were abused or neglected in state care as children.**Kevin Rudd will also apologise to child migrants taken from the UK to Australia after the war, often without their parents’ consent.
The Canberra ceremony is expected to be attended by hundreds of people forced to migrate when young.
An estimated 30,000 UK children arrived in Australia during the 20th Century.
On Sunday, the UK government said the British prime minister would apologise for the forced migration policy next year.
Mr Rudd will recognise the mistreatment and ongoing suffering of some 500,000 people held in orphanages or children’s homes between 1930 and 1970.
‘Significant moment’
Under the Child Migrants Programme - which ended just 40 years ago - the UK sent poor children to a “better life” in Australia, Canada and elsewhere.
As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were told - wrongly - their parents were dead.
Many parents did not know their children, aged as young as three, had been sent to Australia.
Care agencies worked with the government to send disadvantaged children to a rosy future and supply what was deemed “good white stock” to a former colony.
HISTORY OF UK CHILD MIGRANTS
- UK the only country with a sustained history of child migration - over four centuries
- In 1618, 100 sent from London to Richmond, Virginia
- In total 130,000 sent from the UK to Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Australia
- Post-war, 7,000 shipped to Australia and 1,300 to New Zealand, Rhodesia and Canada
Source: Child Migrants Trust
Ordeal of Australia’s child migrants
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In many cases they were educated only for farm work, and suffered cruelty and hardship including physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
The founder of the Child Migrants Trust, Margaret Humphreys, has travelled from the UK to Canberra for Mr Rudd’s apology.
She said: "The trust has campaigned for over 20 years for this kind and degree of recognition. For child migrants, of course, it has been all their lives and for their families.
“This is a moment - a significant moment - in the history of child migration. The recognition is vital if people are to recover.”