From the early 1800s to the late 1980s, the Australian government took many Aboriginal children away from their families. Their families had not agreed to let their children go. However, the government had decided to force Aboriginal children to "assimilate" into Australian society. The children where placed in white homes or on missions. There, they were forced to learn Christianity, leave behind their Aboriginal culture, become a part of white society, and marry white people. The goal of this program was to "breed out" Aboriginal traits so that they no longer existed in Australia. Later, in 1951, the United Nations would define this type of program as genocide.