Oppressive care

Oppressive care occurs when someone has good intentions but they do something which is harmful to the person being cared for. This is often because they have not thought of the situation from the perspective of the service user or they don’t understand the situation completely. Oppressive care is not the same as someone, for example, sexually abusing a child under their care—which is clearly abuse, but it can still be abusive.

Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples
The official document citing the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples (2008)
Extreme examples of this can be seen in:

  • The Stolen Generations
    • The government removed children from Aboriginal families and communities because they believed that growing up ‘white’ was best for them.
  • Forced sterilisation
    • Parents worried their intellectually disabled daughters were not able to handle the responsibility of bearing and raising children, could have them sterilised.
  • Removing children from single mothers
    • Single mothers were forced to put their children up for adoption.