Prove your boy is an Aborigine, DOCS demands
Gemma Jones
The Daily Telegraph
November 24, 2009
A BLOND, blue-eyed baby suffered 18 broken bones, torn retinas and head injuries in a spectacular failure of DOCS reforms.
The eleven-month-old boy had been assessed in the lowest risk category in the lead up to the injuries, which caused him to "die" twice before being revived on the way to hospital in March.
He will now likely be returned to his family under kinship laws because his mother recently claimed the baby was indigenous.
This was despite an Aboriginal health clinic in a small western NSW town, where his foster carer lives, rejecting him because of his caucasian appearance.
His carer said she had been given an ultimatum by DOCS this month to prove she was Aboriginal or he would be taken.
She had been told last month she would be the boy's carer until he was 18 but after his mother recently told DOCS she "identifies as Aboriginal", caseworkers have been forced by law to look to move him to relatives.
"It is heartbreaking to think they could take him because of the colour of our skin, because we're not black enough," the carer said.
The boy is likely to be sent to live with relatives or, if none are suitable, with an Aboriginal family.
The carer believes her grandmother was part Aboriginal but she has been too scared of discrimination to disclose her heritage.
A DOCS spokeswoman said: "As the mother identifies as Aboriginal, Community Services is required to place the baby with a culturally appropriate family."
His father has been charged with assaulting the baby and his mother now lives in Queensland.
Both of the boy's wrists were broken, as well as his ankles, several ribs, knee, tibia, femur and both his retinas were detached. Eleven fractures were untreated and were healing on their own.
Doctors believed his fractures were inflicted almost from the time he was born.
The carer said DOCS hid the extent of the boy's injuries from her for months, telling her only that the boy's head "lagged" to one side as the result of an assault.
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