Please note ‘The Princes Trust’ has been amended to ‘The Fairbridge Society’.

Since it began its work in 2015, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has held 15 separate investigations into various institutions to build a picture of what went wrong in the past and consider how best to prevent child sexual abuse from happening in the future.  

Each month the Inquiry is highlighting a particular investigation, revisiting the public hearings and the subsequent report. We will also bring you up to date with responses to the recommendations that were made in the investigation. Our first investigation and report was into the Child Migration Programme. 

Due to our recommendations in the report, more than 1,400 former child migrants have received long overdue compensation, as well as acknowledgement and apologies from the institutions that failed them.  This was significant because the scheme didn’t use an assessment of individual harm when deciding on the payouts, instead compensating people for an overall failure of the government to protect children that it had allowed to go abroad.

Please see the press release below for more information.

Press release – for immediate release

In 2017 the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse held 20 days of hearings into the Child Migration Programmes, which took children from care or from their families in England and Wales and placed them in institutions or with families abroad.  

We heard from experts and witnesses, including former child migrants who gave moving and distressing accounts of the horrific abuse they experienced as a result of being migrated abroad. Many more offered their testimony via witnesses statements that were read out during the hearing. The Inquiry also heard from people representing the institutions and organisations that had removed children for nearly 100 years, including government departments, public authorities and private and charitable organisations. The organisations who took part in the programme included Barnardos, The Children’s Society, The Fairbridge Society and the Salvation Army. 

The children were systematically and permanently migrated to parts of the British Empire including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with the knowledge and approval of successive British governments. In 2010, the British Government issued an apology for its role in the programmes. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown (who issued that apology) was called to give evidence, as was former PM Sir John Major.  

The Inquiry heard from witnesses about the brutality faced by children – the sadistic killing of a beloved pet horse as a collective punishment, sexual abuse committed by those entrusted with the care of these children, horrific physical abuse that included severe beatings and electric shocks.  

One witness told the Inquiry that he was regularly caned for wetting the bed and was constantly hungry. He also described being thrown down the stairs and suffering a serious head injury. He was sexually abused by a male teacher who would come into the dormitory during the night and rape him, or take him to an isolated area and abuse him there. This happened every week for a year.

The last child to be migrated was sent to Australia in 1970. The public hearing found no evidence that the practice was stopped because the government thought it was wrong; rather it was stopped, at least in part, because the “supply” of children had dried up. 

Inquiry chair Professor Alexis Jay said: 

“Child migration was a deeply flawed government policy that was badly implemented by numerous organisations which sent children as young as five years old abroad.

“Successive British governments failed to ensure there were sufficient measures in place to protect children from all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse. The policy was allowed to continue despite evidence over many years showing that children were suffering.”

In March 2018, the Inquiry published the investigation report into the Child Migration Programmes which contained three recommendations:  

Notes to editors

1. The public hearings into the Child Migration Programmes took place over 20 days in February, March and July of 2017 at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London. 

2. The report into the Child Migration Programmes is available here: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/publications/investigation/child-migration

3. Over the last five years the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has:

·        held 323 days of public hearings across 15 separate investigations  

·        heard live evidence from 648 witnesses 

·        disclosed 24,565 documents covering 590,000 pages  

·        produced 14 reports 

·        Made 53 recommendations

4. The Inquiry’s Final Report is expected in 2022.