Oranges and Sunshine

Here is another example of past British governmental ideas of what was 'good' for disadvantaged or otherwise unprotected children. One recalls the heartless relocation of aboriginal children in Australia so vividly portrayed in "Rabbit-Proof Fence". After watching "Oranges and Sunshine" (and I didn't even see it from the beginning) I couldn't stop thinking of all those thousands upon thousands of helpless little boys and girls, deprived of any human rights whatsoever and doomed to cheerless and loveless childhoods. And then added to the flawed concept of this wholesale export of the underage needy is the fact that there are always predators who will pervert power over the weak into a free hand with abuse of every kind.

Of course the greater part of the 'migrants' were profoundly damaged by the appalling treatment they received in a program officially perceived to be 'beneficial', at least in some quarters. Who was to benefit from the production of scarred adults, one has to wonder? Disposing of unwanted people by transporting them to far-flung colonies or Dominions was business as usual a couple of centuries ago; what's especially shocking is the discovery that this was occurring not in Early Georgian or Dickensian England, but only decades ago-- recently, uncomfortably recently. And this in a supposedly civilized nation! This film should have been made thirty years ago...