British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to deliver a formal apology to victims of Britain’s historic forced adoption practices in Parliament on Thursday, acknowledging the state’s role in a system in which an estimated 185,000 children were taken from unmarried mothers in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976, the BBC reports.The apology will follow decades of campaigning by mothers, adoptees and their families, and comes after a cross-party parliamentary inquiry earlier this year concluded that successive government policies helped create an environment in which unmarried women were routinely shamed and forced to give up their children.Before delivering his statement in the House of Commons, Starmer is expected to meet with campaigners in Downing Street.
‘We have always been accused of abandoning our children’
Campaigner and Labor MP Ann Keane, whose son was adopted without her consent in 1966, said the apology was very important, according to the BBC.“We all need this apology because we’ve always been accused of abandoning our children and we haven’t abandoned them,” Keane told the BBC.Campaigners have long argued that many women had little or no choice, with social stigma, institutional pressures and official policies forcing them to hand over their children because they were unmarried.
The investigation found that the state helped create the coercive system
A report published in March by the House of Commons Education Committee concluded that government decisions “shaped an environment in which unmarried mothers were often shamed and forced to give their children up for adoption.”The committee urged the government to issue an immediate formal apology and also recommended better access to adoption records and more support for mothers and adoptees trying to locate or reunite with their families.The call for an apology echoed recommendations made in 2022 by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which said the government bears ultimate responsibility for the suffering caused by public institutions and state employees who “incited mothers into unwanted adoptions.”
long campaign for recognition
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed last month that the government would apologize for what she described as a “shameful period in our history”.The move is a reversal from the previous Conservative government, which expressed regret over the treatment of unmarried mothers in 2023, but argued that a formal state apology was not appropriate because it did not believe the state actively supported the practice.The Westminster apology follows similar apologies issued by the devolved governments in Wales and Scotland. It is expected that Northern Ireland will consider a formal apology after the public inquiry into mother-and-baby institutions is completed.
Church also acknowledged ‘pain, trauma and stigma’
Sarah Mullaly also apologized to those affected and said that it had lifelong effects on the families of many survivors.He acknowledged the “pain, trauma and stigma” caused to mothers and children and said it was a shame that such practices were occurring within Christian communities.
Preachers remember those who never lived to hear the apology
For many preachers, Thursday’s apology will be bittersweet.It comes almost exactly two years after the death of Veronica Smith, who co-founded the Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA) in 2010 after her daughter was taken away from her in the 1960s.Current MAA president Diana DeFries, whose own daughter was forcibly adopted at age 17, said that many of the women who fought for decades for official recognition are no longer alive or well enough to see this moment.“It’s deeply poignant,” said Defries, adding that while the government’s acknowledgment of injustice is welcome, it is heartbreaking that many of the campaigners who had dedicated years to the cause were not present to hear the apology.