The New South Wales government is funding investigations into possible clandestine burials at three Stolen Generations institutions, confirming that the search has widened beyond the notorious Kinchela boys’ home, where multiple sites of possible clandestine burials were discovered last year.
In September, Guardian Australia revealed there are at least nine “suspicious” sites of possible graves on the grounds of Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home, one of the most violent and abusive institutions of the Stolen Generations era.
A report by experts surveying the area using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) highlighted “high priority anomalies” in the ground at the home, which show “signal patterns that in other contexts have proven to be human burials” and cannot be explained by other information sources.
“Some evidence supports the use of cadaver dogs in finding buried human remains,” the report said.
Following the revelations, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, said he was open to funding further investigations at Kinchela on the north coast of NSW. Minns also vowed to take further action if more potential burial sites at other institutions of the Stolen Generations era were uncovered.
A spokesperson for the NSW government has confirmed it is supporting investigative work at two other Stolen Generations institutions: Cootamundra girls’ home and Bomaderry infants’ home.
“The NSW government has committed funding for investigations into accounts of missing children at three sites of former Aborigines Welfare Board children’s homes located at Kinchela, Bomaderry and Cootamundra, through the Keeping Places project led by Aboriginal Affairs NSW,” a spokesperson for the NSW minister for Aboriginal affairs and treaty, David Harris, said.
Aboriginal Affairs NSW has held a series of meetings with the survivor organisation, the Kinchela Boys Home Corporation and the Kempsey Local Aboriginal Land Council, which owns the site.
These meetings “ensure this critical work continues with the rightful and respectful urgency it requires”, the spokesperson said.
It is understood the report’s authors urge caution about interpreting the results as some of the anomalies could be archaeological as well as forensic. If forensic (less than 100 years old), police would need to be called in. But the authors note that the only way to determine for sure if there are bodies buried on the site is to excavate.
Kinchela was run by the Aborigines Protection Board, later called the Aborigines Welfare Board, under the NSW government from 1924 until it closed in 1970.
An estimated 400 to 600 Aboriginal boys between the ages of five and 15 were taken away from their families and incarcerated there under the laws and policies of the Stolen Generations era.
Kinchela survivors have long maintained that Aboriginal boys died at the home, either as a result of the brutal physical punishment and neglect or because they may have “met with foul play”.
“The minister has sought advice from the attorney general because of the legal complexity in relation to the report findings,” the spokesperson said.
“The minister asks the media and community to be sensitive to Sorry Business and truth telling, which can raise serious mental health and trauma issues for survivors, their families and their communities, and to give the parties the space they need to work through the issues together in the spirit of agreement-making to determine the next steps.”
The Aborigines Protection Board, later called the welfare board, ran from 1909 to 1969. It was a draconian regime of assimilation which included the forcible removal of Aboriginal babies and children.
From 1912 to 1969, the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls operated. Survivors of the home say there were referred to as “inmates’” and recall it was a harsh place where the strict routine was regulated by a bell and punishments included being locked up in “the morgue”.
Aunty Lorraine Darcy Peeters was taken to Cootamundra as a four-year-old.
“We learned from a very young age how to clean, because that was the endgame for us,” Peeters told NITV News in 2022. “We were to come out perfect servants. The process was done by brainwashing and abuse.”
At the age of 15, girls were usually sent to work as domestics, but their wages were withheld by the board.
From 2004 to 2011, the NSW government operated a repayment scheme to assess claims and pay survivors and their descendants these stolen wages.
Bomaderry infants’ home was run for the state government by the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) until 1988. It took babies and children up to the age of 10 who had been forcibly removed from their families. When they grew older, children were sent to Cootamundra, Kinchela or other institutions, fostered or adopted.
UAM record-keepers made reference over time to babies and children dying in their care.
For information and support in Australia call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for a crisis support line for Indigenous Australians; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636
