British Children in Exile

From the 17^th to 20^th Centuries, the British have, under a succession of schemes, rounded up hundreds of thousands of ‘abandoned’ children and sent them to colonies to provide labour. These colonies include Virginia (USA), India, South Africa, Rhodesia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Several schemes operated from the 1920s until the late 1960s, though only a small number of these supposedly abandoned children went to New Zealand. Canada put a halt to these programs in 1933 on the grounds that institutionalisation led to abuses and psychological damage to the children. Some children were exported to Australia in the late 1930s but this program was interrupted by World War II.