Government-run institution for girls was run like a concentration camp Royal Commission hears

Story summary:

• Evidence of abuse over 30 years
• Girls had done nothing more than be born into poverty
• Estimated 30,000 girls went through two institutions
• Girls were raped, drugged, beaten and their spirits broken
•  

An image from The Inconvenient Child written by Sharyn Killens and Lindsay Lewis. Source: News Corp Australia

 

A GOVERNMENT institution for girls was run like a concentration camp where new inmates were told: “Welcome to Hay. We will make you or break you, your choice” as their hair was hacked off. 

Girls were drugged with Largactil, an antipsychotic, and handcuffed to train seats when moved from the Parramatta Girls Training School in Sydney to the Institution for Girls at Hay, the royal commission into child sex abuse has heard today.

Emotions were raw at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Robin Kitson seeks support. Source: News Corp Australia

 

A packed hearing room in Sydney has been warned that the evidence to be given by 16 of the former inmates of the Parramatta and Hay institutions covering three decades would be graphic and disturbing.

Girls who had done nothing except being born into poverty were sent to the institutions where they were raped in the dungeon, raped in isolation cells, drugged, beaten and their spirits broken.

“Had no pride, no self-respect. They took everything from me.”

Their attackers were not just those in charge such as the only two officials still alive — John Frank Valentine, Noel Greenaway and a woman who has not been named — but the other girls.

An estimated 30,000 girls went through the two institutions between 1950 and 1974 when they were finally closed. Hay was a former colonial jail and Parramatta went on to become a female jail.

Counsel assisting the commission, Caroline Spruce, said the government no longer had any records of either institution.

Inside the cell block, the girls were strictly disciplined and lived in the former jail’s cells which were referred to as cabins. Picture: The Inconvenient Child Source: News Corp Australia

 

An image from the book titled, The Inconvenient Child written by Sharyn Killens and Lindsay Lewis. “Hard labour, harsh discipline and extreme punishment were standard at Hay”. Source: News Corp Australia

 

One of the brave women who has stepped forward to tell her story, Yvonne Kitchener, is expected to tell the royal commission about how she was among the most rebellious girls who were sent to Hay.

“They controlled everything from the amount of toilet paper we got to whether we got sanitary napkins when we had our periods. We had to show them our bleeding,” the commission has been told Ms Kitchener will say.

“Had no pride, no self-respect. They took everything from me.”

A lonely struggle Sharyn Killens Lindsay Lewis The Inconvenient Child follows the true story of an abandoned Australian child's struggle to survive childhood and find her African-American father. The story details her abandonment by her mother at an orphanage at the tender age of five. It includes a period when the young Sharyn Killens is incarcerated in the Institution for Girls at Hay. By the age of 24 Sharyn had become an exotic dancer in Kings Cross but soon left her troubled past behind her and embarked on a search for her father. To buy the book click here

At both Parramatta and Hay, the girls were not allowed to talk to each other or they would be punished. At Hay, there were red dots on the floor to make sure that they had to walk six feet from each other.

The inmates have asked for the now-closed Parramatta Institution to become a historic building. At Hay, which is now a museum, in 2007 a group of inmates put up a memorial that says: “Let no child walk this path again.”

Counsel for the State of NSW, Jacqueline Gleeson SC, said the accounts of the girls would be treated with dignity and respect.

Community Services minister Prue Goward is among those in the packed public gallery.

Ms Goward left the commission at morning break visibly upset after hearing the harrowing testimony of the first witness, Fay Hillary.

“I can’t speak,” Ms Goward said outside the commission.

Most of the girls sent to Parramatta Girls School were sent there by courts who ruled they were in “moral danger” or neglected. Many were victims of rape or other sexual abuse - but the offenders were never even charged, the commission was told.

In Parramatta Girls School, Robin Kitson said she had all her teeth removed at the age of 16 or 17 “because they said I was a bad girl.”

Ms Kitson, 66, was sent there for six to 9 months where she was inmate number 181, and had to wear the secondhand bras and knickers which had been worn by the previous inmate number 181.

In an emotional testimony, she said that eventually she reported to a welfare officer that she had been raped at the institution.

“Before she left the home, she reported it to the governor,” Ms Kitson said.
“I was called up by Mr (Percival) Mayhew (then deputy superintendent) and another officer what my problem was.

“I said ‘nothing’”.

“That’s when Mr Mayhew smashed my face with a bunch of keys and locked me in isolation for 21 days. They made me stay until the bruises went away.

“What they did to us was absolutely disgusting, it was shocking.”

The commission is expected to sit in Sydney until the end of this week hearing this inquiry.

Pru Goward was too upset to speak to the media as she left the commission today. Picture: John Appleyard Source: News Limited

"Standing 'at ease' at our Cabin doors, waiting for our turn in the ablution parade." The Institution for Girls, Hay NSW. Picture: The Inconvenient Child Source: News Corp Australia

news.com.au 26 Feb 2014

The largest perpetrator is the government when it comes to crimes committed against the vulnerable, e.g. children of the state, the disabled, institutionalised.

The DoCS (Department of Child Services), DHS (Department of Human Services), The Salvation Army are all responsible for child abuse  on a large scale.

Anything lone abusers like Mr. Stinky can conjure up pales to what the government has done.