King Charles is under fire after the charity he founded agreed to pay just $3800 to kids who were sexually abused in Australia. Photo / Getty Images
King Charles is under fire after the charity he founded agreed to pay just $3800 to kids who were sexually abused in Australia. Photo / Getty Images
King Charles is being slammed after his charity - which he founded and is now president of - said it would pay only $3800 (NZ$4097) to children who were sexually assaulted in Australia as part of a British government-funded scheme, according to news.com.au.
Hundreds of children who were taken from poor British families by the government and sent to “farm schools” in Australia and Canada have been offered settlements. They were sent overseas in order to receive “opportunity and education”.
Instead, many of them were sexually abused, flogged publicly and suffered emotional cruelty.
The Prince’s Trust, started by King Charles in 1976, is legally responsible for the child abuse survivors’ claims because it acquired Fairbridge, another charity that previously ran the farm schools, in 2012.
In 2022, the British high court valued the compensation claims at an estimated $382,000 (NZ$412,000) for each child who suffered abuse. However, survivors have been informed that they will see less than 1 per cent of the number due to “insufficient moneys” allocated by the Prince’s Trust.
The payment has been dubbed “outrageous and grossly unfair” and an “insult” by spokespeople for the survivors, who have put pressure on the King to get involved.
A teacher, Brenda Ridley, reads to a group of children in Stevenage, England, before they begin their journey to a new life at the Fairbridge Farm School at Molong, New South Wales in Australia in 1948. Photo / Getty Images
The Old Fairbridgians Association is a group of people representing the victims of abuse and has written an unsparing letter to King Charles.
David Hill begged the King to correct what he dubbed an “injustice” by the former charity, reports The Guardian.
In the 1950s, Hill was sent to a farm school in Australia at the age of 12, where he alleges he was subjected to illegal treatment and public floggings.
“The body which bears the initial responsibility for the sexual, physical and emotional abuse of hundreds of Fairbridge farm children, some as young as 5 years of age, intends to pay each survivor an amount of up to approximately $3820 (NZ$4097) or, in many cases, less than that,” Hill wrote.
“I cannot begin to tell you how offensive, hurtful and distressing this is to all Old Fairbridgians, all of whom are now elderly and nearly all of whom have borne the trauma and scarring from their experiences throughout the whole of their lives.
Children at Fairbridge Farm School in 1949. Photo / Getty Images
“Many of them have never been able to live anything approaching normal lives as a result of their experiences at Fairbridge institutions.”
The Prince’s Trust is believed to have assigned $2.42m (NZ$2.60m) to the Fairbridge Restored scheme. The trust received 328 applications from sexual abuse victims who attended the Fairbridge farm schools and were still alive after March 2020.
The survivors also claim that the Prince’s Trust has stalled on delivering payments, which means many of the abuse victims may die before they receive any compensation from the trust.
King Charles III meets TV presenter Tyler West as he hosts the winners of the Prince's Trust awards and celebrity ambassadors at Buckingham Palace in 2023. Photo / Getty Images
Scarlett Mccgwire, a political commentator, believes the small amount indicates King Charles’ lack of generosity.
Speaking to GB News, Mccgwire said: “These are people who have had awful lives. A lot of them will be affected for the rest of their lives.
“What was done was appalling and they deserve some compensation. What gets me about The Princes’ Trust is that Charles never puts his hand in the pocket for anything. He’s not the most generous of people.”
The Fairbridge Society was started back in 1909 to address child poverty in the UK and increase the British presence in the colonies.
In 2018, a report by the independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse discovered that Fairbridge had failed to protect kids from abuse at four different farm schools in Australia, Canada and Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe.
The inquiry dubbed the child migration programmes “a deeply flawed policy that caused lifelong damage to many children”.
Just last week, the King was seen socialising at the Prince’s Trust Awards, which was hosted at Buckingham Palace.
The Palace has declined to comment regarding the survivors’ allegations when contacted by various media outlets.
