259 Maltese boys and 51 Maltese girls were sent alone to Catholic institutions in Western and South Australia between 1950 and 1965, following negotiations between the Maltese and Western Australian governments which had started in 1928 when Perth-based Maltese priest Father Raphael Pace urged the Christian Brothers to include Maltese children in its emerging migration scheme. Instead of receiving a better education as their Maltese parents hoped for, many of them were exploited for building works, and were never scholarised in English, while also forgetting their own Maltese language. Similar to other children living with the Christian Brother, the children were abused and measures were taken to not allow or limit contact with their family members in Malta.