The British taught us everything we know about child labor

When Prometheus 6 pointed out the ABC News story about child labor used to harvest U.S. blueberry crops, I did what we so often do. I expressed momentary outrage, made a comment on his blog, and went to the next issue. Child labor as known in the U.S. would certainly go to the back burner after the Nightline video aired on October 30th.

Now, what would trump migrant child labor in the U.S.? How about the British and Australian governments doing the same to their very own kids who are British citizens?

As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were told - wrongly - their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them.

Many parents did not know their children, aged as young as three, had been sent to Australia.

Care agencies worked with the government to send disadvantaged children to a rosy future and supply what was deemed "good white stock" to a former colony.

If you want a bit of irony (and I'm sure you do) I'd like you to meet Baroness Amos, Britain's high commissioner in Canberra as she explains the forthcoming official apologies from the British and Australian PMs. (I'm not great at manually embedding video that doesn't want to be embedded, so please click through below.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8361208.stm

Wow.