Child Migrants Memorial, Melbourne Migration Museum, Victoria

A welsh love seat in the garden of the Victorian Migration Museum is a memorial for child migrants who were sent to Australia as part of child migration schemes during the twentieth century.

The design of the seat, made of Australian timber by Damien Wright, allows two people to sit almost side by side but facing in opposite directions. As well as referencing the heritage of some of those who were sent to Australia, the seat perhaps suggests the split in identity experienced by some child migrants, some of whom still do not know their full history.

A plaque embedded in the paving around the set reads:

This memorial is dedicated to thousands of innocent children removed from their families and loved ones and sent to Australia between 1912 and 1972 under the British and Commonwealth Child Migration Schemes. 
Funding for this memorial provided by the Australian Government. 

The funding came in the wake of the 2001 Australian Senate Report, known as the “Lost Innocents”,  which recommended memorials as a sign of acknowledgement by the Australian government of its role in the child migration schemes and acknowledgement of the contribution child migrants have made to Australian society.  However, neither the plaque not the love seat itself does much to tell this story to visitors without background knowledge.

The Migration Museum is located near Melbourne's Flinders St Station, and just  over the road from one of the bridges leading acrosss the Yarra River to the popular Southbank, where a memorial to Forgotten Australians is located.

Despite the busy location, the love seat courtyard is quite secluded. This could be a good thing for child migrants or their families who might want to spend some quiet time there. On the other hand, it also means the memorial is not well known.