Aboriginal man wins 'stolen generation' compensation

Activists have renewed calls for an official apology after a court awarded 525,000 Australian dollars (€329,000) to an Aboriginal man taken from his family as a baby – the first such payout for a member of Australia’s so-called “stolen generation”.

The South Australian Supreme Court in Adelaide ordered the state government to compensate Bruce Trevorrow for damages caused when he was taken from his parents without their knowledge 50 years ago.

From 1910 until the 1970s, around 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were a doomed race and saving the children was a humane alternative.

A national inquiry into the so-called stolen generation held in 1997 found that many children taken from their families suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from the loss of family and culture.

The inquiry recommended that state and federal authorities apologise and pay compensation to those who were removed from their families.