I’m not sure genocide would be the first term to come to mind when I think about the Stolen Generation–it seems more like ethnic cleansing, although even that term means something different when applied to, say, the Balkan civil war. Whatever we choose to call it, it’s a shameful chapter in Australia’s history, no different from the forced relocation (and wholesale slaughter) of native Americans in the U. S. (What’s even more outrageous is that the reason full-blooded Aboriginal children were not targeted is that full-blood Aborigines were considered too “uncivilized” or savage to be assimilated.)

On a side note, the rabbit-proof fence itself is of interest: the longest continuous fence in the world. It’s still maintained to this day, although it failed pretty miserably in its original purpose of keeping rabbits from overrunning Western Australia. But it seems to work pretty well as a metaphor for this story.