'Stolen Generation' Aborigine wins test case

Finally, a breakthrough:

Australian aborigines renewed their calls yesterday for an official apology to members of the "Stolen Generation", following a landmark payout to a man taken from his family when he was a baby.

Bruce Trevorrow, 50, was awarded A$525,000 (£220,000) by the South Australian Supreme Court as compensation for a lifetime of problems, including depression, alcoholism and the loss of his cultural identity. The court found that the state government had removed him from his parents without their consent in 1957.

Mr Trevorrow is one of about 100,000 mainly mixed-race children who suffered that fate, as a result of official assimilation policies that were only abandoned in 1975. Members of the Stolen Generation have been seeking compensation since 1997, when a national inquiry found many of them had suffered long-term psychological effects. Mr Trevorrow is the first successful litigant.

The size of the award astonished observers, and was welcomed as a breakthrough.
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- the Independent: 'Stolen Generation' Aborigine wins test case
- Wikipedia: Stolen Generation