Stolen Generations Survivor Bronwyn Smith Recounts Trauma and Calls for Action

Warning: This story contains images of First Nations people who have died.

Standing in the principal's office at her local primary school, Bronwyn Smith knew she was about to receive some bad news.

A grade 3 student at the time, she was surrounded by a group of police sergeants, the principal and the manager of the Aboriginal girls' dormitory in Cherbourg, Queensland.

Without a guardian in sight, she was told to go to the children's dormitory, where her sisters and brothers were taken, with the instructions not to return home.

"I didn't have any voice or advocacy about what was happening and why it was happening," the now 62-year-old Wakka Wakka woman said.

As the school bell rang, she went to the dormitory just as she was told, but what unfolded next created years of deep trauma that still impacts her today.

Thousands of First Nations children removed

Ms Smith shares the experience of many Stolen Generations survivors who testified to the landmark inquiry, Bringing Them Home, which investigated the impact of discriminatory government policies.

The inquiry found from 1910 to 1970, up to one third of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. While the total number could not be confirmed due to inaccurate records, the inquiry estimated many thousands of people were and still are affected.

In Queensland, First Nations peoples were lawfully removed from their families as far back as 1865, under the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act.

This legislation authorised the removal of "neglected children" to live in reformatories, known today as juvenile detention centres. The Act defined "any child born to an Aboriginal or half-caste mother" as a "neglected" child.

Over the years, the laws used to remove children changed names, but the intent was consistent.

By the 1970s, standing in the principal's office surrounded by authorities, Ms Smith was torn from her family.

"I'm so broken as a result of it, in the way that I live my life, the way that I am a partner, a mother, grandmother, the way I am with my siblings and my nieces and nephews. All those relationships are impacted," she said.

"It's taken me this long, 50-odd years, to be even comfortable about talking about this.

Life inside Cherbourg Aboriginal Girls' Dormitory

The Cherbourg Aboriginal Girls' Dormitory was situated on the government-controlled settlement, which segregated children from their families, imposing a harsh, strict routine.

This regimented way of life started before the sun came up.

"We had a five o'clock wake-up and had to go and get boiling water from a fire outside in the yard and carry the scalding water in a bucket up two flights of stairs and mop the floor every morning," Ms Smith reflected.

"There were no excuses and you did your bit because if you didn't, you'd get punished for it. But it also meant somebody else had to pick up the slack."

Children weren't allowed to leave the premises unless they had permission. Contact with their parents and siblings in the other dormitories was forbidden.

Ms Smith's brothers lived in the boys' dormitory. One day by chance, she spotted them playing in the front yard.

"It was really horrible because I missed my brothers," she said.

There were strict rules about how to set the dinner table, to tucking the sheets of the bed with hospital corners – all part of the "conditioning" young girls endured while training to become domestic servants.

"Christmas, we would have white dignitaries, someone from the department or the local town council would come into the community to see how the Blacks were behaving, I guess," Ms Smith said.

But in those four long years she was living in the girls' dormitory, Ms Smith says, hope still prevailed.

It lived in the visits her "dormitory sisters" were granted with their families.

"Whenever parents did come, it was a celebration for all of the dormitory kids."

"Those aunties and uncles would give us a cuddle, and it was really lovely, because we never got that.

"If we were upset about anything, there was no emotional connection or kind words unless we did that for ourselves," she explained.

Hope also lived in the glimpses of innocence that survived.

"We did things like braiding girls' hair or sat on the bed and told stories or play string and knuckles," she said with a smile.

"They're vital relationships that have sustained time and place. Even if the structure was to separate and diminish us, this is something that 50 years later, I still have wonderful memories of."

At about 13 years old, Ms Smith enjoyed brief visits with her mum. But it would be a long road ahead with strict conditions before they could live together again.

Despite the challenges, she now has a loving family of her own.

But the painful legacy of the girls' dormitory instilled fear that her own children could be removed.

"I was very regimented and I did that for a very long time. I tried hard to maintain that while it was killing me inside," Ms Smith said.

"That untold damage [I passed on] to my children.

"My grandkids would never know it. I don't want my grandkids to not see me laugh and be silly and just soak up their innocence and their joy for life.

"I never had that growing up.

"If I suffered to make their life a little easier, then I'll happily do it again. My grandkids are my world," she said.

'Apathy' for generational change

Ms Smith wants to see more effort from the government to address the current rate of Indigenous child removals.

Close to 20,000 Indigenous children were in out-of-home care when last counted in 2024, comprising more than 44 per cent of all children in the system.

"It's atrocious, the apathy across several governments," she said.

May 26 is National Sorry Day, the anniversary marking the day the Bringing Them Home report was tabled in parliament.

This year's theme is "From Sorry to Action", which calls on governments to take urgent steps to implement the remaining recommendations within the survivors' lifetime.

An independent review in 2025 titled Are you waiting for us to die? found that only five out of 83 recommendations from the Bringing Them Home report have been implemented.

Ms Smith wants to see truth-telling reinstated in her home state of Queensland, as well as redress payments for survivors.

Queensland is the only jurisdiction in Australia that does not have a reparations scheme for Stolen Generations survivors.

"I'd like to see Queensland toe the line, bare minimum, on a national issue and be honest about what Queensland are responsible for as a state … I'm a product of that, not just myself, my father as well and Queensland still hasn't done anything to address that," she said.