The Australian SR90 Testing Program

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Dimity Hawkins AM is an Australian activist, researcher and a co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN), whose advocacy centres on the history of nuclear weapons testing, nuclear chain issues, the need to eliminate nuclear weapons and for nuclear justice, particularly in the region in which she lives. She identifies as a cis lesbian woman, using the pronouns she/her. Dimity is a current PhD candidate at Swinburne University in Melbourne. Her thesis, which is nearing completion, focuses on the response of Fiji to nuclear testing and decolonisation in the period of 1966-1975. Dimity was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Australian Queen’s Birthday Honours for "significant service to the global community as an advocate for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament."

Dimity is conducting research on the Australian Strontium-90 testing program, that ran between 1957 and 1978 and during which bone and teeth samples from the bodies of deceased citizens, particularly young children, were taken without consent or knowledge of family members.

Following public inquiries in the early 2000s, many families are likely to have been left uninformed of what happened to human remains from the program.