REBEL WITH A CAUSE by Georgina Fraser

Member of the Care Leavers Of Australia Network

 

Abstract
I am an old state ward of N.S.W. I will be speaking on Social Justice and Equal Rights. I am a voice for older State Wards who are still too traumatised to talk.

 

I stand to talk to be their voice and mine.

 

I am a battered ward of the state, a street kid who was verbally, physically and mentally abused. I had no rights, no education, and worked as a domestic. I am here to be heard. I am a member of CLAN (care leavers of Australia)

 

REBEL WITH A CAUSE

 

My name is Georgina Fraser. I am an older State Ward of New South Wales.  As a member of CLAN, (Care Leavers of Australia), I will be speaking on Social Justice and Equal Rights. I am a voice for older state wards who are still too traumatised to talk.  Tonight I am their voice and mine, and I am here to be heard.

 

As a ward of the state I had no childhood.   My early years were spent on the streets or in and out of foster homes where I was verbally, physically and mentally abused.  I had NO RIGHTS and little education.

 

From the age of three to eighteen I was a ward of the state.   Australia prides itself on providing equal rights for everyone, but there were no rights at all for the Wards of the State.   I was deprived of those things which many of us take for granted. I could not go to school like everybody else.  How could I feel loved when I did not know who I was, or where I had come from.

 

When I was three years old I was placed in Saint Catherine’s Orphanage, where I stayed until I turned twelve.  During that time I received one visit from my mother and father.  At the age of twelve I was then placed in Burdera Girls Home in Glebe.  While I was there, I was forced to submit to virginity tests by male doctors.  Thankfully after a series of public protests this hell hole was eventually closed down, so that other young girls would not have to experience this violation of their rights and bodies.

 

After an endless succession of Foster homes I was then placed into domestic service at a home in Vaucluse from the age of fourteen to eighteen.  While I scrubbed their floors and cooked their meals I remember watching their own children going off to school.  Even then I felt this desperate longing to be able to Learn.  Instead of parties and pretty clothes I spent my teenaged years living in one of my three blue uniforms.  For six days a week I worked from 7am to 7pm.  My room was the place beneath the stairs which was only big enough for a bed.

 

I have been asked to tell you how this has affected me.  Like many of us older Wards of the State, we now find ourselves in a position where many of us have adult literacy problems, some of us cannot spell or even add up.  I did not know what it was like to celebrate a birthday with a cake or a party.  I had no family at my wedding, no family present at the birth of my beautiful daughter.  There was no family Christmas, no Mother’s day, no Father’s Day.

 

You hear my words but you cannot feel my pain.

 

We speak of Morals, Principles and Ethics, but where were theirs, the government of that day, the Church Groups and Welfare groups, that could allow the children to be treated this way.  You are listening to a woman who still has great anger towards the system which allowed this to happen.  

 

In this country we define Social Justice as Equal Rights and Education for all Australians, regardless of gender, race, religion or disability, but where are the Rights of these forgotten children. 

 

We were Small and they were Big, but I know what wrong is and I know what Right is.  We need good politicians, judges and doctors, to come up through the ranks, we need strong men and women to stand up and speak out so that these crimes against children can never happen again. 

 

Although I have been to hell and back, I can at least say that I like the person I have become.  I now work with special needs children, and have worked in hospices for the dying and the aged, but I am one of the lucky ones.  There are still so many of us older Wards of the State who are still battling with the trauma of their past.  Like me, they still experience the despair of loss and grief.

 

They still feel disconnected as the result of having no roots, no sense of family nurturing and love.  We need to give birth to new policies which will bring compassion and healing, for otherwise there is no justice.   As a survivor I will not allow us to be silenced any longer.