In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children are nearly 10 times more likely to be removed from their families by child protection services compared to non-Aboriginal children.
And data shows the number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care is projected to double by 2029.
"The figures are appalling, and we should all hang our heads in shame," Tanya Harper, from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC), said.
"Today in 2022, we are continuing to create yet a new generation of stolen children."
The data, released by Family Matters, has led to renewed calls for Aboriginal-controlled organisations to be given greater control over Indigenous children needing out-of-home care across the country.
Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Jamie-Lee Maynard-Burgess knows what it is like to be removed from her family and her culture.
She spent much of her childhood in out-of-home care.
The 30-year-old said the experience was "unsettling and traumatising", saying she struggled to trust people and that she had a mixed experience in out-of-home care when it came to connecting with her culture.
"Sometimes depending on what homes we were in, some people would allow us to be in the community and then other people wouldn't," she said.
Now and then Ms Maynard-Burgess was given respite at a home at piyura kitina, Risdon Cove, which is run by the TAC.
"They took us into this home and looked after us and just made sure that we were getting the care and love that we needed," she said.
She would like to see Aboriginal community-controlled organisations given greater control in child protection cases.
"Just for them to have the first say instead of a child getting taken straight away and put in a home they don't know," she said.
Ms Harper said it was important for young people to grow up with a "deep sense of belonging" and understanding of who they are.
"To deny that denies children, who are in care anyway, to know who they are and where they fit into this world," she said.
'No-one can take better care of them'
Tasmania has the lowest rate in the country of Indigenous children being placed with Aboriginal carers, at 13 per cent.
The state also has no Aboriginal involvement in child protection case decisions.
"We ultimately need to be responsible for our own children," Ms Harper said.
"They're our future; no-one can take better care of them … than we as a community."
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre runs a family support program in Hobart, Launceston and Burnie.
"Our focus is always working with the family pre any contact with child safety services," said Tahana Mansell from the Family and Children Program.
"It is that on-the-ground identifying with the family what they're needing and wanting to keep themselves or their young people safe.
"That could [mean] supporting them to navigate through the housing system."
But TAC has been campaigning for years for control over child safety services involving Indigenous children.
"I mean, we did it OK before invasion," Ms Harper said.
"It's obviously going to take a whole lot of resources."
She said funding currently being used to run some child safety services could be transferred to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations.
Ms Harper said the cycle would continue without change.
"We cannot isolate the removal of Aboriginal children from their families … from the process of invasion and dispossession and near genocide.
"All of those are connected and the impacts of trauma, loss and grief that result from that.
"We are still taking children and creating new generations of stolen children who then go on to pass that on to their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren."
Reforms proving successful in Victoria
At a recent hearing of the Tasmanian Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Heather Sculthorpe from TAC said: "Sometimes the lengths the department goes to avoid Aboriginal decision-making is pretty extraordinary."
In Victoria, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 16 times more likely to be removed from their families by child protection services than non-Indigenous children.
It is one of the highest rates in the country.
"I think as a nation we should be really sort of shocked and horrified," said Muriel Bamblett, CEO of Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency.
"If this was a public health issue, we'd be all screaming out.
"We know internationally and nationally that this is a significant issue of children of colour entering the system."
But in Victoria, reforms are proving successful.
Half of child protection cases involving Aboriginal children are managed by an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation.
"We're running a program, Aboriginal Children Aboriginal Care, and it's the first in Australia where guardianship is transferred to the CEO of an Aboriginal organisation," Ms Bamblett said.
"Currently, I have in my care 121 children that I am the guardian for and so I make all the decisions that normally would be made by child protection.
"The reunification rate for the department is about 12 per cent, our reunification is up as high as 24 per cent."
Ms Bamblett said on one court sitting day of a Children's Court in Victoria, five Aboriginal children were sent home to their families.
She said it was a model that could be adopted across Australia, and there was even greater scope to improve.
"If Aboriginal people had control, we could potentially get 50 per cent of our children back home into families, into communities where they belong being raised in their culture," she said.
"We've got legislation in place to look at Aboriginal organisations in Victoria being able to take on investigations for aboriginal children as well."
She said many Aboriginal children in Victoria are placed with kin or grandparents.
"Our critical role is to make sure that those grandparents, aunts and uncles have the resources and supports," she said.
"Many of our Aboriginal people are still impoverished, so placing a child from one family to another — and particularly if that family is in poverty — creates hardships and creates additional risks.
"We need to make sure that we support kinship carers."
The National Closing the Gap target aims to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care by almost half.
"The worst thing that can happen for an Aboriginal child is to know they are Aboriginal but have no sense of who they are where they come from or being able to connect with other people within their community," Ms Bamblett said.
In a statement, Tasmanian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Roger Jaensch said the government was "progressing two key initiatives to further embed the Aboriginal child placement principle for children in out-of-home care".
"We will work with Aboriginal community organisations to develop an Aboriginal-led case management service model for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care," he said.
"[And we will] work with Aboriginal community organisations to identify and build capacity for Aboriginal Family Group Conference Facilitators to oversee those conferences that relate to Aboriginal children and young people."
