Forced Adoption Practices Receive an Apology in Federal Parliament

Thursday 21 March 2013 @ 3.37 p.m. | Legal Research

Today in Parliament, the Prime Minister issued an apology to all those affected by past forced adoption practices. This makes the third such apology delivered in recent years by the Labour Government.

According to The Conversation, yesterday's apology followed on from the historic first apology to the Indigenous Stolen Generations, delivered by Kevin Rudd in February 2008; and a second national apology, also delivered by Rudd, to forced child migrants, former wards of the state and institutionalised children in November 2009.

Between 1940 and 1970, it is estimated that "100,000 to 150,000 thousand infants were forcibly or coercively removed from mothers, mostly young unmarried women."

These interventions which were framed as being good for empire, the nation and the adoptees themselves saw children taken from parents who were black, poor, unmarried or otherwise deemed unfit to care for them.

In each case, the state is apologising for the impact of past policy interventions into families and the continuing impact that this has today.

To read more, see The Conversation Article and related materials.

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