When Ericka Louvain was growing up in a high-security state-run institution, she had plenty of quiet time to contemplate the reality of her life.
She was placed there after leaving an unsafe home, and experienced yet more violence, sexual abuse and restrictions on her liberty.
Most of all, she remembers how silent it was.
So when she learned a planned national memorial for victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse would be located in a tucked-away corner of Canberra people rarely visit, she was perplexed.
She's among a number of people - including victim-survivors - who have called for the site to be reconsidered following the announcement early in June Ngurra, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural precinct, will be located in the same area as the National Memorial for Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. The memorial is slated for a secluded lakeside spot on Acton Peninsula between the National Museum and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
It will also be close to what will eventually be a refurbished police museum in the old administrative wing of what was once the Canberra Hospital.
As a victim-survivor herself, Ms Louvain wasn't part of the consultation process around the memorial, but she has plenty to say about where it may one day be placed, and what it would mean for people like her.
"It's got to be prominent, and it's got to be emphatic," she said of the memorial.
"It's got to be loud, loudly stating that this happened, and not tucked away where it can be confused with other things."
She said many Australians, out of ignorance or misunderstanding, conflated the Stolen Generations with the Forgotten Australians, the approximately 500,000 children who were placed in institutional or other out-of-home care in the last century.
Having the Ngurra cultural precinct close to the memorial would conflate the two cohorts, not to mention placing either close to a future police museum, she said.
But above all, she was concerned a memorial to people like her, in a "quiet and contemplative" location, would be more of a trigger than a comfort to many.
The memorial was the subject of a design competition, but its future is in flux with the news in May the chosen $7.9 million design had been scrapped after being deemed unworkable.
The National Capital Authority, which is overseeing the memorial's design and construction, launched a new design competition before the announcement the Ngurra precinct would now be on the same site.
In response to questions from The Canberra Times, the Department of Social Services, which will deliver the memorial, confirmed the site would not change in the wake of the Ngurra announcement.
"This site meets a range of important criteria for victim-survivors, as identified through a national public online consultation process undertaken by the department in November, 2020," a spokesperson said.
"When selecting the site in 2020 from options provided by the NCA, the National Memorial Advisory Group was required to balance competing site considerations identified through the national public consultation process, such as opportunities for quiet reflection, contemplation and paying respects, prominence (proximity to major landmarks, public transport and adequate parking), and privacy."
They also maintained there were benefits to having it on the same site as AIATSIS and the National Museum of Australia, as this would "increase visitation and exposure".
For Ms Louvain, the secluded site couldn't be less appropriate.
"I'll draw a visual description of the places where I was," she said.
"You had high concrete walls, with razor wire around the top. You couldn't see outside. It was very quiet. We had to be very quiet. There was no way of communicating with the outside world. We didn't go to school outside. We went to school inside. You had so much time in your hands to think about your reality. So it was pretty much like quiet contemplation.
"How many years did we spend quietly contemplating the fact that we were locked up and couldn't get out, couldn't go to school, couldn't talk to our friends, couldn't make friends, couldn't see our families? To me, there was sufficient time back then, when we were living that reality, for quiet contemplation.
"The memorial should not be repeating the reality that we lived."
She said it should instead be placed squarely within the National Triangle among numerous other national monuments.
"I think for people like me, the biggest thing we have through life is shame and secrecy," she said.
"We keep our backgrounds a secret, we're ashamed of our backgrounds. And we hide it - we either make up stories, to fill in the years that we were kept in secret, quiet places. And we need to be able to stand proud, and look at the world in the eye as equals.
"I think this country needs to know what happened to us, and how much harder we have had to work to achieve the very beginnings of what other 'normal children' had."
She understood there would be differences of opinion, especially among different generations, and some victim-survivors may well favour a quiet place.
"I think it's great that the government has agreed to this memorial, I'm really happy about that, but I would like them to listen to more victim-survivors," she said.
"I do understand that some have said, 'We want a place for some quiet contemplation'. But I think that the consultation needs to be a little bit more publicised and more people need to be captured and heard.
"I think of a cemetery. I think of a church - that's where a lot of the abuse happened."
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732.
