Two Indigenous children left in limbo in England to return to Australia

Two Indigenous siblings stranded in the UK will be returned to Australia this week amid calls for an investigation.

There are calls for an investigation into how two Indigenous foster children were stranded in Britain.

Two Indigenous children taken to England by their foster parents in 2020 and never returned are due back in Australia this week, as calls grow for an investigation into the case.

It is unclear where the siblings, aged 14 and 15, will live when they return, with fears that the NSW Department of Communities and Justice is poised to place them in residential care, generally the last resort for housing vulnerable foster children.

Opposition child protection spokeswoman Kerrynne Liddle said an investigation was required into why the children, Australian citizens who had no visas or legal status in the UK, were allowed to stay there until the NSW Court of Appeal upheld a case brought by the children’s birth mother last December.

It is understood one child was no longer living with the foster parents and had been in the British child protection system since mid last year.

“An investigation will identify who knew what, when and what action they took,’’ Senator Liddle said, criticising the delay in getting the children home.

“It took six weeks and front-page stories in The Australian newspaper to get the Albanese government to prioritise action for passports to kickstart the process to get these children home. Their mother’s persistence is commendable,’’ she said.

The siblings’ mother, known in court documents as DN, told The Australian that she pursued the case because she believed the children should be raised here, not on the other side of the world, removed from family and culture.

She has not seen her children since 2020 and was nervous on Monday ahead of their return, but hopeful that she could rebuild a relationship with the pair, even though there is no expectation they can be immediately returned to her.

“I have had tears and I will have [more] tears, but they will be happy tears when they are back here,’’ she said.

The case began in 2009 when NSW authorities took the two ­babies from DN due to concerns around their care and placed them with an aunt and other Indigenous families.

Those arrangements faltered in 2017 and the foster carers, British citizens here on working visas, offered to take them. When their visas expired they took the children to England with the consent of NSW authorities on the ­condition they be returned three months later. That was July 2020 and the children never came back.

In June 2022 the NSW Children’s Court granted parental ­responsibility to the foster carers living with the children in ­England but ordered the departmental minister in NSW to ­ensure the siblings’ ongoing contact with family and connection with culture. The DCJ secretary was to provide three six-monthly reports to the court on how the care plan was working and updates on the children’s contact with their family.

Senator Liddle said a review would reveal what steps had been taken to fulfil these orders. She said it appeared the children had been forgotten, “out of sight and seemingly out of reach of the authorities and family”.

“Nationally, there are over 45,000 children in out-of-home care,” she said. “How many more are in foreign countries and what do we know about the visibility of children sent across state/territory borders? We need to pull the curtains back on this.’’

SNAICC, the peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander children, joined calls for the children to be brought home. “The fact they are in the UK in the first place is yet another demonstration of how child protection systems are failing Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children and families.’’

The NSW government plans to overhaul the child protection system to reduce the number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. Of the 14,000 children taken from their families, 46 per cent are Indigenous. A taskforce will be established to facilitate children being reunited with their families when it is safe to do so.