Stolen Motherhood

This is a moving and thoughtful investigation into the absence of the voices of Aboriginal mothers before the Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry, reported in 1997 as Bringing Them Home. Have Aboriginal mothers been silent because of the intense pain of their loss, as many have understandably thought? Or have some chosen to be silent? If they have chosen silence, why did they do so? Have the burdens of child removal policies fallen most heavily on women, both as removed children and as mothers? Is their silence always the outcome of oppression? Or might silence be a site of resistance and a strategy to wrest back control? What Anne Maree Payne learns from interviewing Aboriginal mothers, from Aboriginal autobiographies and, indirectly, from the testimonies in the Report, deepens our understanding of the tragedy of colonialism for women and men across the Aboriginal community. At the same time, the book demands hard questions about the limits of restorative justice and rights-based advocacy; about the strengths but also the costs of 'speaking out'. Yet there are stories of hope too - mothers, families and removed children who find some peace and justice when they find each other. There have been some conditions in Australia and internationally where mothers have felt able to speak. The voices of the Aboriginal mothers in this book demand deep listening. -- Heather Goodall, Professor Emerita, University of Technology Sydney This heart-breaking and compelling book illuminates the experiences of Aboriginal mothers in the history of the Stolen Generations. Payne exposes fault lines in the production of knowledge that we have about this long episode in Australia's past - the cost of speaking, the price of silence and the limited terms on which non-Indigenous Australia has engaged with it. In exposing these fault lines and bringing Aboriginal mothers' accounts of coercive child removal into the foreground, the texture of our understanding of the Stolen Generations is greatly enriched. -- Catherine Kevin, Flinders University