The government must apologise to the thousands of women whose children were forcibly adopted in postwar Britain, a committee of MPs has said.
The House of Commons Education Committee called for the apology in a new report into the practice of historical forced adoption.
Between 1949 and 1976, around 185,000 children were adopted in the UK.
While not all of these adoptions were forced, many of them were. At the time, women and girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were routinely expected to have their children adopted at birth, with no contact with the children afterwards.
The report said that many unmarried mothers did not give informed consent to their children being adopted and suffered “inhumane” treatment during pregnancy and childbirth in Mother and Baby homes and “cruel” separations from their babies.
One woman who gave evidence and gave birth in 1967 said: "When I went to the [Mother and Baby] home, it was like a punishment: the whole time I was there, my role was to scrub steps from morning until the evening. When I got to the bottom, I was told to go back to the top and do them again…. When I went into labour and into the hospital, I was given nothing for pain because I was told, 'You will remember the pain because you’ve been a bad girl'."
Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood and chair of the Education Committee, said: “Historical forced adoption practices coerced mothers and caused unimaginable trauma for multiple generations of women and profound, often devastating impacts for their children. The committee’s evidence session with survivors of these appalling practices was one of the most moving days I have experienced in Parliament.
"Our report today is unequivocal: the government must urgently offer an unqualified apology for the state’s role in shaping the forced adoption practices that harmed so many survivors.”
The report said that the need for the apology was urgent as the women who suffered forced adoption are now in later life and some have passed away.
The report also highlighted the negative experiences of some adopted children, including neglect and abuse from their adoptive families; lack of sensitivity towards transracial and transnational adoptees’ identities; a greater risk of mental health problems and suicide in adulthood; and a lack of knowledge about their genetic health risks.
The report said that many adopted children had faced barriers when trying to access their adoption records.
The committee therefore called on the government to introduce a clear legal duty on record-holding institutions to maintain and securely store their records, establish a single, standardised access point for records, and issue new guidance to local authorities to improve those seeking information about their records.
It also called for a nationally funded and regulated intermediary service to ensure that all mothers, adoptees and other impacted relatives have access to skilled, trauma‑informed professionals while attempting to make contact with each other.
The report also said that commercial DNA testing services have now made it possible for adopted children and their biological relatives to find each other directly online. It noted: “There may be a need for organisations providing such services to be regulated, and to offer advice and guidance and signpost users to available support.”
A government spokesperson said: “This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected.
“We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those affected to provide support.”
