Forced adoption

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Forced adoption refers to the practice of removing children from their biological families and placing them for adoption against the wishes of the parents, often with little or no consent. This practice has historically been a significant issue in various countries, where societal, governmental, and institutional pressures led to the forced separation of children from their families, especially in cases where the parents were marginalized, impoverished, or deemed unfit by authorities. The practice has been widely criticized for its violation of human rights and its long-lasting emotional and psychological effects on both children and parents.

Contents

Forced adoption in different countries

Ireland

In Ireland, forced adoptions were widespread, particularly from the 1940s to the 1980s. Many children were removed from single mothers, often under the assumption that these women were unfit to raise their children due to the social stigma surrounding unmarried mothers. Religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church, played a significant role in these adoptions, operating institutions like mother and baby homes. These institutions often housed women who were pregnant out of wedlock, and after childbirth, their babies were taken for adoption, frequently without the mother's consent or knowledge. Many of these adoptions were carried out in secret, and records were not kept, making it difficult for families to reunite later. The Irish government has since acknowledged the wrongdoings of these institutions, and in 2021, the Irish Prime Minister issued an apology for the forced adoptions and the abuses committed in these homes. [1] However, the trauma caused by these practices still affects many individuals today. [2]

The most well-known example of the forced adoptions was the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home. This institution, located in Tuam, Ireland, became infamous for the discovery of a mass grave in 2014, where the remains of 796 infants were found. [3] The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home operated from 1925 to 1961, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order. It was a home for unmarried mothers, and many of the babies born there were placed for adoption or died under questionable circumstances. The discovery of the grave sparked widespread outrage and renewed discussions about the treatment of women and children in similar institutions across Ireland during the 20th century. The home's legacy remains a significant point of reflection in the history of Ireland's treatment of vulnerable women and children.[ citation needed ]

Belgium

Belgium also witnessed forced adoptions, particularly in the post-World War II era, where social norms surrounding family and legitimacy influenced the treatment of unmarried mothers. These women were often pressured into giving up their children for adoption under the notion that they were not capable of providing a suitable home. Catholic institutions were also involved in the placement of children for adoption, sometimes without the full consent or awareness of the biological parents. Like in other countries, these forced adoptions were often shrouded in secrecy, with little regard for the emotional and psychological consequences on both the birth parents and the children.

Many heavily pregnant girls were taken to France to give birth anonymously, as this was forbidden in Belgium. These girls and their children were later illegally smuggled back into Belgium, where their babies were forcibly removed. This was called Sous X practices. [4] There were also numerous instances of abuse in Belgian mother-and-child homes, such as the notorious Tamar home in Lommel. In this institution, children were taken from their mothers against their will and given up for adoption in exchange for donations, a practice that commodified human life. Furthermore, girls were sterilized [5] against their will and girls were subjected to forced labor in a local carpet factory. These disturbing practices highlight the dark history of forced adoption in Belgium. The Belgian government has since acknowledged these injustices, but many individuals affected by forced adoptions continue to seek closure and reunification with their birth families. [6]

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, forced adoption was particularly prevalent from the 1950s to the 1970s, especially among working-class families and unmarried mothers. These adoptions were often facilitated through a combination of social services and adoption agencies, with children being removed from their homes under the guise of protection or due to perceived neglect. Many of the children were placed in private homes, frequently without the consent or full understanding of the biological parents. The system was often coercive, with authorities threatening to label mothers as unfit or irresponsible parents, or even to have them institutionalized if they refused to relinquish their children for adoption. The psychological and emotional toll on the parents, who were sometimes manipulated into signing adoption papers, was immense. This practice continued until significant reforms were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s.

Forced assimilation

Removing children of ethnic minorities from their families to be adopted by those of the dominant ethnic group has been used as a method of forced assimilation. "Forcibly transferring children of [a] group to another group" is genocide according to the Genocide Convention. [7] While this usually revolves around ethnicity, assimilating children of political minorities has also occurred.

Australia

The Stolen Generations in Australia involved Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, [8] [9] where over 60 years from 1910, it is estimated that as many as a third of Aboriginal children were taken from their families. [10]

Canada

In Canada, the Canadian Indian residential school system involved First Nations, Métis and Inuit children, who often suffered severe abuse. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] The Sixties Scoop is a period when Canadian child welfare agents had the authority to take indigenous children from their families for placement in foster homes so they could be adopted by white families. [16]

China

As part of the persecution of Uyghurs in China, in 2017 alone at least half a million children were forcefully separated from their families, and placed in pre-school camps with prison-style surveillance systems and 10,000 volt electric fences. [17]

Poland

In German-occupied Poland, it is estimated that 200,000 Polish children with purportedly Aryan traits were removed from their families and given to German or Austrian couples, [18] and only 25,000 returned to their families after the war. [19]

South Sudan

Among nomadic groups, particularly the Murle people, children are abducted in raids against other tribes to be raised as their own. The practice is thought to be intended to increase the tribe's numbers. [20] This includes the 2016 Gambela raid and 2017 Gambela raid.

Spain

Hispanic eugenics was pioneered by psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo-Nájera who proposed a link between Marxism and intellectual disability, leading to the thefts of many Spanish newborns and young children from their left-wing parents. [21]

Ukraine

In April 2023, the Council of Europe voted overwhelmingly, with 87 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstention, to deem the "deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied" as an act of genocide. [22]

Child welfare

Child welfare is often the rationale given for separating children from their parents. Family preservation is the perspective that it is better to help keep children at home with their families rather than in foster homes or institutions. How that should be balanced with the potential of harm to children is a matter of debate. [23]

Abusive parents

Separating children from parents is most commonly used today for parental abuse of children.

Single mothers

From the 1950s to the 1970s in the anglosphere, babies were frequently taken away from unmarried mothers without any other reason simply because unmarried mothers were considered unsuitable parents, in what was known as the baby scoop era. [24] [25] In 2013, the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologized for the forced adoption in Australia of babies born to unwed mothers that occurred mostly in the twentieth century. [26]

In Belgium from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s, the Catholic Church took in pregnant unmarried women and, during childbirth, some women were given general anesthetia while others had to wear a mask to prevent them from seeing their children. Some women were sterilized. About 30,000 such children were sold to adoptive parents for between 10,000 and 30,000 Belgian francs (roughly between €250 and €750) and sometimes much more. [27]

Parents in poverty

In Switzerland, between the 1850s and the mid-20th century, hundreds of thousands of children mostly from poor families, as well as single parents, were removed from their parents by the authorities, and sent to work on farms, living with new families. They were known as contract children or Verdingkinder . [28] [29] [30] [31]

In South Korea, during the military dictatorship, the government pursued a "social purification" program that forced thousands of people off the streets into government-funded, privately run welfare centres. If they gave birth, the children were taken away to be adopted. [32]

Parents belonging to minorities

A 2023 report from the South Australian Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People warned of a new "stolen generation" finding Aboriginal children were increasingly being removed from their families with every other Aboriginal child in South Australia being subject to a one child protection notification in 2020-21 compared to one in 12 for non-Aboriginal children. [10]

Norwegian Child Welfare Services are accused of disproportionately removing children of immigrant parents. [33] [34]

Parents with criminal records

In the United Kingdom, former judge Alan Goldsack called for the UK Government to forcibly remove children from 'criminal families' at birth and to place them for adoption. His remarks have been criticized and he has been accused of "criminalising babies". [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

Infanticide is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose being the prevention of resources being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were usually abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were deliberately killed. Infanticide is generally illegal, but in some places the practice is tolerated, or the prohibition is not strictly enforced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stolen Generations</span> Indigenous Australian children forcibly acculturated into White Australian society

The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption</span> Parenting a child in place of the original parents

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.

A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include death, divorce, break-up, abandonment, becoming widowed, domestic violence, rape, childbirth by a single person or single-person adoption. A single parent family is a family with children that is headed by a single parent.

<i>Lebensborn</i> Nazi Germany eugenics program

Lebensborn e.V. was a secret, SS-initiated, state-registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans, based on Nazi eugenics. Lebensborn was established by Heinrich Himmler, and provided welfare to its mostly unmarried mothers, encouraged anonymous births by unmarried women at their maternity homes, and mediated adoption of children by likewise "racially pure" and "healthy" parents, particularly SS members and their families. The Cross of Honour of the German Mother was given to the women who bore the most Aryan children. Abortion was legalized by the Nazis for disabled and non-Germanic children, but strictly punished otherwise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orphanage</span> Residential institution devoted to the care of orphans

An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Tann</span> American child trafficker (1891–1950)

Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was an American social worker and child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an unlicensed adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s to 1950. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous cases of adoption fraud led to the institution's closure in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.

The Baby Scoop Era was a period in anglosphere history starting after the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s, characterized by an increasing rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of newborn adoption.

Adoption in Australia deals with the adoption process in the various parts of Australia, whereby a person assumes or acquires the permanent, legal status of parenthood in relation to a child under the age of 18 in place of the child's birth or biological parents. Australia classifies adoptions as local adoptions, and intercountry adoptions. Known child adoptions are a form of local adoptions.

Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sixties Scoop</span> Canadian policy of forcibly putting Indigenous children up for adoption

The Sixties Scoop, also known as The Scoop, was a period in which a series of policies were enacted in Canada that enabled child welfare authorities to take, or "scoop up," Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in foster homes, from which they would be adopted by white families. Despite its name referencing the 1960s, the Sixties Scoop began in the mid-to-late 1950s and persisted into the 1980s.

Child-selling is the practice of selling children, usually by parents, legal guardians, or subsequent custodians, including adoption agencies, orphanages and Mother and Baby Homes. Where the subsequent relationship with the child is essentially non-exploitative, it is usually the case that purpose of child-selling was to permit adoption.

Forced adoption in Australia was the practice of taking babies from unmarried mothers, against their will, and placing them for adoption. In 2012 the Australian Senate Inquiry Report into Forced Adoption Practices found that babies were taken illegally by doctors, nurses, social workers and religious figures, sometimes with the assistance of adoption agencies or other authorities, and adopted to married couples. Some mothers were coerced, drugged and illegally had their consent taken. Many of these adoptions occurred after the mothers were sent away by their families 'due to the stigma associated with being pregnant and unmarried'. The removals occurred predominantly in the second half of the twentieth century. According to Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Marissa Calligeros, it was a practice which has been described as 'institutionalised baby farming'. In evidence given to the New South Wales Parliamentary Inquiry into Adoption, Centrecare's Chief Social Researcher was quoted as admitting to "a stolen white generation."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster care in Australia</span>

Home-based care, which includes foster care, is provided to children who are in need of care and protection. Children and young people are provided with alternative accommodation while they are unable to live with their parents. As well as foster care, this can include placements with relatives or kin, and residential care. In most cases, children in home-based care are also on a care and protection order.

Forced adoption is the practice of removing children permanently from their parents and the subsequent adoption of those children, following intervention by the Children's Services department of a Local Authority in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home</span> Irish maternity home and site of mass grave for children

The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, which operated between 1925 and 1961 in the town of Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, was a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children. The home was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a religious order of Catholic nuns, that also operated the Grove Hospital in the town. Unmarried pregnant women were sent to the home to give birth and interned for a year doing unpaid work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation</span> 2021 Irish government investigation

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was a judicial commission of investigation, established in 2015 by the Irish government to investigate deaths and misconduct during the 20th century in mother and baby homes—institutions, most run by Catholic religious nuns, where unwed women were sent to deliver their babies. It was set up following statements that the bodies of up to 800 babies and children may have been interred in an unmarked mass grave in the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, located in Tuam, County Galway. Its remit additionally covered investigation into the records of and the practices at an additional thirteen Mother and Baby Homes. The members of the three-person Commission were Judge Yvonne Murphy (chairperson), Dr William Duncan and Professor Mary E. Daly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child abductions in the Russo-Ukrainian War</span> Forced Russian adoption of Ukrainian children

During the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia has forcibly transferred almost 20 thousand Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland. The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement. According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.

The Stranorlar County Home or Stranorlar Mother & Baby Home, Stranorlar, County Donegal, Ireland was a home for unmarried women from about 1924 until the 1960s. It was one of 18 institutions investigated as part of the Irish Government's 2021 investigation into abuse and high death rates at mother and baby homes following the discovery of the remains of hundreds of children at Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway who had been buried in a septic tank. Stranorlar was included in the investigation as one of four state-run institutions to provide a representative sample of other similar Homes which were not investigated.

References

  1. ↑ "Irish church and state apologise for callous mother and baby homes". The Guardian. 13 January 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2025.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ↑ "Irish mother and baby homes: Timeline of controversy". BBC. 13 January 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2025.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ↑ Carroll, Rory. "A stain on Ireland's conscience': identification to begin of 796 bodies buried at children's home". The Guardian. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  4. ↑ Hutsebaut, Carine (2003). Kleine Zondaars (in Dutch). Houtekiet. ISBN   9789052406626.
  5. ↑ "Nonnen verkochten Cyrilla's baby en lieten haar steriliseren (Dutch)". Het Laatste Nieuws. 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ↑ Stevens, Jan (2024). Zusters zonder liefde (in Dutch). Manteau. ISBN   9789022341315.
  7. ↑ "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide". www.ohchr.org. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 9 December 1948. Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  8. ↑ "The Stolen Generations". Australians Together. Archived from the original on 19 November 2015.
  9. ↑ "The agony of Australia's Stolen Generation". BBC News. 9 August 2007. Archived from the original on 4 December 2007.
  10. 1 2 "Australian Aboriginal child separation at 'devastating rates': Commissioner". Al Jazeera. 5 October 2023.
  11. ↑ Griffiths, Sian (13 June 2015). "The schools that had cemeteries instead of playgrounds". BBC News. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015.
  12. ↑ "Survivor of Canada's residential schools talks about abuse". BBC News. 5 June 2015. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015.
  13. ↑ Paquin, Mali Ilse (6 June 2015). "Canada confronts its dark history of abuse in residential schools". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 January 2017.
  14. ↑ Luxen, Micah (4 June 2015). "Survivors of Canada's 'cultural genocide' still healing". BBC News. Archived from the original on 25 July 2016.
  15. ↑ "Canada apology for native schools". BBC News. 11 June 2008. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015.
  16. ↑ Dart, Christopher. "The Sixties Scoop Explained". CBC Docs POV . CBC. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  17. ↑ Sudworth, John (4 July 2019). "China separating Muslim children from families". BBC News. Archived from the original on 5 July 2019. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  18. ↑ "Searching for missing relatives in Poland". Financial Times. 30 October 2009.
  19. ↑ Gitta Sereny, "Stolen Children", rpt. in Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise). Accessed 15 September 2008.
  20. ↑ "Why hundreds of people are dying over cattle in East Africa". Los Angeles Times. 21 April 2016. Archived from the original on 22 November 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  21. ↑ Morcillo, Aurora G. (2010). The Seduction of Modern Spain: The Female Body and the Francoist Body Politic. Bucknell University Press. ISBN   9780838757536.
  22. ↑ Taylor, Harry; Henley, Jon; Sullivan, Helen (27 April 2023). "Council of Europe says Russian-forced deportation of children from Ukraine is 'genocide'". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  23. ↑ "MP claims 1,000 children 'wrongly' adopted every year". BBC News. 13 December 2011.
  24. ↑ ‘We were human beings’: UK families seek apology over historic forced adoptions Archived 20 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine The Guardian
  25. ↑ The UK's forced adoption scandal was state-sanctioned abuse Archived 20 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ↑ Calligeros, Marissa (2010-12-23). "'Your son is gone. He's with his adoptive parents'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2024-06-07.
  27. ↑ "Catholic Church put up 30,000 children for adoption without mothers' consent". Brussels Times. 14 December 2023.
  28. ↑ "Historian reveals tragedy of Swiss child trade". Swissinfo.ch. 29 February 2004. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015.
  29. ↑ Puri, Kavita (29 October 2014). "Switzerland's shame: The children used as cheap farm labour". BBC News. Archived from the original on 20 July 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  30. ↑ Jordans, Frank (24 November 2011). "Swiss grapple with history of forced child labor". Boston.com. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015.
  31. ↑ Foulkes, Imogen (19 January 2012). "Swiss 'contract children' speak out". BBC News. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016.
  32. ↑ Cho, Hannah; Kongsted, Asta (10 September 2024). "South Korea finds mothers were forced to give up babies for adoption abroad". The Guardian.
  33. ↑ "Forced Adoption Case Against Norway Hits European Rights Court". courthousenews. 27 January 2021.
  34. ↑ Whewell, Tim (3 August 2018). "Norway's hidden scandal". BBC News. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  35. ↑ Adams, Stephen (2013-05-27). "Alan Goldsack QC wants children removed from criminals at birth". News.com.au. Archived from the original on 25 August 2013.
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