Forced Adoption in the UK — House of Commons, 2018-07-12
Topic: Civil Rights
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for securing today’s debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank the Movement for an Adoption Apology for its tireless campaigning work The pain and suffering that the historical practice of forced adoption caused has largely been expunged from the history books and has received limited attention, yet the physical and emotional scars left behind are very real, very current and have an enduring daily impact on the women, children and families involved. Their suffering is made more painful by the fact that, as each day passes and no formal inquiries of any shape take place, the full truth may never be known. They may never be able to reunite with their children or share with them their story. Worse still, many adopted adults do not seek out their birth parents, as they and their adopters are under the false impression that they were freely, not forcibly, adopted At the heart of today’s debate are harrowing human stories, such as those we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), about thousands of women and the babies that were taken from them after intensive coercion, at times force, and deceit carried out by the very institutions of the state that were supposed to help and support them. There were no choices. Ann Keen, our friend and former colleague—her story was told characteristically eloquently and passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South—very clearly showed that this was not about choices This was a cultural attitude fostered by institutions and parts of the state that, instead of acting in the best interests of women and their babies, did the exact opposite. Culturally, the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s, when the majority of these forced adoptions took place, was a very different time. That point was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby. Today, adoption orders are largely made as a last resort to keep children safe from harm, but in the post-war years, many women who were pregnant out of wedlock were chastised and deemed unfit for motherhood. Birth control was less reliable, while the contraceptive pill was available to women only from 1967, and even then only to those who were married. Welfare benefits were not as easily accessible, and sex education was non-existent. It was also a time when people held institutions of the state—teachers, welfare and social workers, benefits advisers, NHS staff, the Church and GPs—in much higher regard than they do now. Particularly in working-class communities, anyone who held such a role was respected and listened to by the community, and their advice was acted on, even when the advice was wrong This debate has only been made possible by women coming forward and sharing their painful stories. It is my honour, although with a heavy heart, to share a few of them today. Diana Defries, initially out of abject fear, concealed her pregnancy. When she eventually saw her GP, she was shipped off miles away from her home in London to a strict mother and baby home in Southampton. She was made to undertake physical work until she was admitted to hospital to give birth. In the hospital, she was treated like she did not matter. She was separated from her baby, given Valium daily—she refused to take it—and injected with a drug, which is not recommended now, to stop her lactating. After 15 days with her baby, she was taken on a train to Waterloo station. When she arrived, she was taken to the Crusade of Rescue Offices in Ladbroke Grove, and her baby was forcibly taken from her Diana was 16 years old when she gave birth to her daughter, Stephanie. She had not long turned 17 when Stephanie was taken from her in October 1974. She received no post-natal care, and she was lied to by social services. She was told she had no other options, and that adoption was the best option. She was told she was too young to receive any help, and a week later she was sent back to school and sworn to secrecy. She has not had any more children, but, thankfully, she is reunited with her daughter. In her words, they have "had to navigate a lot of challenges", and she rightly states that any apology should be for both of them. Attachment is a two-way process: children separated from their birth mothers will, to varying degrees, feel a sense of trauma and loss, no matter how young they are or how long they have spent in their mum’s care In 1964 Veronica Smith was 24 years old. She was sent to a private maternity hospital and isolated from everyone she knew, right at the time when she needed them more than ever. She was with her baby for one week until an advert was placed in a local paper, and her baby was fostered and then adopted by strangers. Veronica’s story, like so many others we have heard today, is a story of powerlessness, and of things being done to women, not with them, on the false assertion that they and their babies would be better off that way, and that if they really loved their babies, they would not resist adoption Another woman told me that she was raped behind a local pub by her then boyfriend’s brother. Her baby was placed into foster care and adopted at four months old. She described to me her treatment by officials as being characterised by submission and deep shame, but the only shame here should be firmly on the shoulders of those who harmed her and the state institutions that failed her and her baby Others have told me of being abused when they were sent away, or being ostracised and subjected to degrading and vicious verbal abuse from professionals. The common thread running through all those stories is one of lies, control, coercion, force, abuse and cruelty, which has led to a lifetime of mental health difficulties, physical harm and emotional distress. For someone not to know where their child is, or whether that child knows that they were forced into giving them up, is a deep and pervasive pain Today we are asking for a simple and straightforward act by the Government: an apology to the women, children and families for their enduring pain and undue suffering. As Diana said, such an apology would "allow us to show the lifelong impact of unexpressed grief for unacknowledged loss." In his response, I would like the Minister to explain briefly his Government’s grounds for rejecting a public inquiry, and say whether he is considering other ways of shedding light on these travesties, such as conducting an initial scoping exercise in his Department, or appointing a small team to review the issues raised today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South suggested, he could set up some support groups and make documents available. The Minister does have options available, and I say politely to him that he should use them We now live in different times, and although the likelihood of what happened to Ann, Diana, Veronica and thousands more women happening today has diminished, their pain endures every moment of every day. The very least they deserve is an apology, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will confirm that they will get one.