British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday formally apologized for the forced adoption of an estimated 185,000 babies born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976, calling the scandal “a stain on our history.”
“We are deeply and profoundly sorry to the mothers who were told they were unfit, who were prevented from caring for the children they desperately wanted ... and who have carried this loss for decades,” Starmer told parliament.
The scandal saw the mothers, including many who were teenagers, effectively coerced into giving up their children with social, institutional and family pressures used to persuade them that adoption was their only option.
“The shame is not yours. The shame was never yours. The shame is ours,” Starmer insisted.
The premier paid tribute to survivors who had campaigned for the apology and the “extraordinary courage with which they have shared their harrowing testimonies and fought for the truth time and time again.”
“What happened to them, and to tens of thousands of mothers, children, and families, should never have happened,” he said after meeting a group of the survivors at his Downing Street office.
“It is a stain on our history, mothers, many young, vulnerable, and without support were coerced, bullied, or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them.”
Starmer added that the removal of the children had been “embedded within systems across local authorities, across voluntary and faith-based institutions, and in health and social care services.”
“Young mothers were told that they were immoral, that their babies would be better off without them and ... that lasts a lifetime and has a huge impact.
“The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimized, which enabled these practices to occur ... for this systemic failure. I am truly sorry.”