As you know, we have been fighting a long campaign to obtain a full formal public apology for the cruel injustices suffered by mothers, children and fathers.
When young women became pregnant during the post war decades, it was considered shameful. Everything was done to forcibly remove "illegitimate babies. from young unmarried mothers. This was supposed to maintain a veneer of respectability. Instead it inflicted great trauma.
The terrible lifelong harm done to mothers and the children taken from them is almost too much to comprehend. Some mothers only had their children for a few weeks, some for just a few days, some for only a few hours. As a nation, we treat kittens and puppies with more consideration than was accorded to vulnerable, unmarried mothers and their babies.
When removing their children, no-one considered the impact on either the mothers or the infants. As well the mothers' accounts of their experiences, some of stories now being shared by adult adoptees are very difficult to hear. Mothers were assured their children would 'have a better life'. Authority figures insisted that if we loved our babies we'd give them to proper parents - a respectable 'husband and wife'.
They told us we weren't fit to be parents - too young, no money, no job, no home.
We were never told about the welfare state and any help that may have been available.
This terrible injustice has had deep repercussions which impacted hundreds of thousands of lives.
We need an apology, to be accompanied by a raft of measures to support all those affected. We have a list and it has been sent to government. They are feigning ignorance.
Please share our petition and help us raise awareness of this campaign so we can no longer be ignored by those in power.
Thank you.
the MAA Committee