Sir Keir Starmer has apologised on behalf of the British state for its role in historical forced adoptions in England and Wales.
An estimated 185,000 babies were taken from their mothers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, with thousands of women pressured into giving up their children because they were unmarried.
In a statement in the House of Commons, Sir Keir said what happened to “tens of thousands of mothers, children and families” was “a stain on our history”.
“The shame is not yours. The shame was never yours. The shame is ours,” he said.
The apology comes after years of campaigning from mothers, adoptees and their wider families, and parliamentary reports into the issue.
Starmer added: “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.”
Starmer said the forced adoptions were not isolated or accidental acts, but were practices “embedded” across local authorities, religious organisations and 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” he told the Commons.
Campaigners met the prime minister in Downing Street ahead of his statement.
One of those was former Labour MP Ann Keen, who told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of the meeting that she was looking forward to “being released from my shame” by the apology.
Keen said she “didn’t have a say” in her son’s adoption after she was sent to a Swansea mother and baby home in 1966, when she was 17.
“We all need this apology because we have always been accused of giving up our babies and we didn’t give them up,” Keen said.
The former health minister said mothers and adoptees had been “waiting a long time” for an apology, but that the government had “done the best they could, because it’s so complex”.
Source:
www.bbc.co.uk
