Allow Exco Player content
This content is provided by Exco Player and may use cookies or similar technologies. Please click 'Allow and Continue' below to load the content.
Sir Keir Starmer has formally apologised on behalf of the state to families affected by historical forced adoption.
Many unmarried mothers had their babies taken from them in the decades after the Second World War in what the prime minister described as a “stain on our history”.
Some of those women watched in Parliament on Thursday as the prime minister told them: “The shame was never yours, the shame is ours.”
Some wiped away tears as the apology was delivered.
It is believed that about 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976.
Campaigners have described the harrowing experience of having their babies taken away and the feelings of shame that they were left with.
Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer meeting with campaigners in 10 Downing Street, London, before making an apology in the House of Commons for historical enforced adoptionsPAMany children adopted as babies have also spoken about the “harmful narrative” that they were rescued by their adoptive families.
In a statement to the Commons on Thursday, the prime minister said he “found it hard to read the testimonies” of those impacted, particularly as a father.
He added: “What happened to them, and to tens of thousands of mothers, children, and families, should never have happened. It is a stain on our history.
“Mothers, many young, vulnerable, and without support were coerced, bullied, or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them. What a thing to do.
“These were not isolated or accidental acts, they were practices embedded within systems across local authorities, across voluntary and faith-based institutions, and in health and social care services, including parts of what is now the NHS.
“All institutions that operated with power over people’s lives, yet they did so without compassion, without consent, and without dignity or proper safeguards. These practices were particularly prevalent between 1949 and 1976 but also extended beyond those years.”
Ann Keen was forced to give up her baby boy for adoption at the age of 17PAA former Labour health minister and forced adoption survivor earlier said that she was looking forward to “being released from my shame” when the apology was delivered.
Read More
Ann Keen was sent to a Swansea mother and baby home in 1966, when she was 17.
Asked if she would accept the government apology, Ms Keen told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Oh, absolutely, we all need this apology because we have always been accused of giving up our babies and we didn’t give them up.
“In particular, so many were taken without our knowledge and in my own instance, I went to see my baby on the eighth day because I was told I could have him for 10 and they said: ‘Oh no, he’s gone now. You were getting far too close’.”
In June, the Church of England apologised for its role in forced adoptions, saying they caused “pain, trauma and stigma”.
Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally spoke of a deep shame that the practice had happened to people “in the care of Christian communities”.
The impact on families had been “lifelong” for many, she said.