Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) a network of families directly affected by child removal, are advocating for greater community involvement in decision making with an aim to reduce the numbers of Aboriginal children removed from both their immediate and extended families.
Aunty Hazel Collins founded the organisation in NSW in 2014. She believes that the government should understand the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families care for their children and that judgement by a non-Indigenous system that has failed First Nations people since colonisation is inappropriate.
Aunty Hazel says that the majority of the 15,000 plus Aboriginal and Torres Strait Inlander children in "out of home care" have not been placed with their Aboriginal families and that relatives are routinely denied ‘kinship carer’ status without justification.
This year marks 19 years since the tabling of the Bringing Them Home report - a report which exposed the impact of policies of forced Aboriginal child removal during the 20th Century.
GMAR say they are fighting for the implementation of the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report, to bring an end to continuing stolen generations.
Khi-Lee Thorpe spoke with Hazel Colins for Living Black Radio.