Forced Adoption in the UK

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

One can only imagine the stress and heartache that many women face when giving a child up for adoption. For virtually all women, there is an everlasting sense of loss that remains with them throughout their lives and guilt about giving up their child to an unknown future because they are unable to look after their baby. Thankfully, there are support agencies and charities that people can turn to for advice about parenting and adoption. We are also fortunate enough to live in a country where raising a child as a single parent is not taboo and is generally accepted by society. Unfortunately, this was not always the case.

In post-world war two society, there was a moral backlash against women who were pregnant, with some women being thrown out of their parents’ homes for bringing so-called shame and disgrace on them. Social workers and others in authority were not necessarily helpful in counteracting those attitudes, and adoption was pushed on young pregnant women as the only sensible option for them. Pregnant women were then sent to mother and baby homes run by religious or state organisations that made the pain and suffering worse. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) so eloquently described, this is where the suffering took place and where the forced adoption happened. They were not advised about things like the National Assistance Act 1948, which was introduced by the Government to help those who were destitute and thus could have helped them. Nor were they advised of any other benefits they could have sought to help them to find a way through the difficult situation they were in.

One such woman was my constituent, Jean Robertson-Molloy, who is present here today and was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Jean reluctantly had to give up her baby in the 1950s, having been pressured to do so, and her daughter was sent to be adopted in New Zealand. Jean spent years of anguish and guilt wondering what had happened to her daughter and what sort of a person she was developing into. It is hard to know whether this is what inspired Jean to become a social worker, but she dedicated her life to helping others. She was eventually reunited with her daughter, so that story had a happy ending. However, the adoption seriously affected her life and that of her daughter, who felt the same as many children who have been adopted, wondering why they were given up for adoption and why they were rejected.

Jean, realising that her experience was not unique, decided to help found a group called the Movement for an Adoption Apology. This movement has been actively campaigning over the years. It is seeking an acknowledgement and an apology from the Government in recognition of the fact that the state turned a blind eye to the false adoption scandal, causing a great deal of distress and mental anguish to those affected. On 21 March 2013, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a full apology, on behalf of the Australian Government, for false adoption. Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Ireland has also given such an apology recently.

The Movement for an Adoption Apology is asking the Government to do the same. The harm done over the years by forced adoption cannot be undone by an apology, but an apology would go a long way to comforting those affected. Will the Minister therefore ask the Prime Minister please to make such an apology to the mothers and children affected by false adoption, to tell the full story of the false adoption practice that happened all those decades ago but is still very much an issue for those affected and to provide the support that is so desperately needed, still to this day, by everyone who has been affected by this scandal?