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Forced adoption

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Forced adoption in different countries

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Ireland

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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

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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

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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

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Main article: 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

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Main article: Stolen generations

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

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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

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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

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Main article: Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany

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

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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

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Main article: Lost children of Francoism

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

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Main article: Child abductions in the 2022 Russian invasion of 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

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See also: Family preservation

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

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

Single mothers

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See also: Baby scoop era and Forced adoption of children through the Catholic Church in Belgium

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

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See also: Verdingkinder

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

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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

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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

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References

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  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. ^ a b "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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