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Jun 13, 2013akirakato rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This is a 2002 Australian film directed by Phillip Noyce based on the book "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence" by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is based on a true story concerning the author's mother, as well as two other mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, Western Australia, to return to their Aboriginal families, after having been placed there in 1931. The film follows the Aboriginal girls as they walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong. For 100 years the Aboriginal People have resisted the invasion of their lands by white settlers. In the 1930s, a special law called the "Aborigines Act" controlled their lives in every detail. Mr. A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, was the legal guardian of every Aborigine in the State of Western Australia. He had the power "to remove any half-caste child" from their family, from anywhere within the state. Mr. Neville was Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia for 25 years. He retired in 1940. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families throughout Australia until 1970. Today many of these Aboriginal people continue to suffer from this destruction of identity, family life and culture. They are called the "Stolen Generations." From today's point of view the whole thing is clearly a violation of basic human rights. It is amazing that in the 1930s th Australians considered it to be a nice and normal conduct that re-inventing half-caste children as members of "white" Australian society.