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Australian PM apologises for 'dark period in nation's history'

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  • Australian PM apologises for 'dark period in nation's history'

    PM apologises for 'dark period in nation's history'

    Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delivered a national apology to
    victims of the government's forced adoption practices that were in
    place in Australia from the late 1950s to the 1970s

    ABC News (Australia)
    Thu Mar 21, 2013

    More than 800 people affected by forced adoptions gathered at the
    Great Hall in Canberra for the historic occasion.

    "Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes
    responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that
    forced the separation of mothers from their babies which created a
    lifelong legacy of pain and suffering," she said.


    "We acknowledge the profound effects of these policies and practices
    on fathers and we recognise the hurt these actions caused to brothers
    and sisters, grandparents, partners and extended family members.

    "We deplore the shameful practices that denied you, the mothers, your
    fundamental rights and responsibilities to love and care for your
    children.

    "You were not legally or socially acknowledged as their mothers and
    you yourselves were deprived of care and support.

    "We say sorry to you, the mothers, who were denied knowledge of your
    rights, which meant you could not provide informed consent.

    "You were given false assurances. You were forced to endure the
    coercion and brutality of practices that were unethical, dishonest and
    in many cases illegal."

    The crowd erupted with applause and many broke down in tears at
    several points throughout the speech. Ms Gillard acknowledged that
    despite the apology, victims will still feel the pain.

    "Friends, as the time for birth came, these babies would be snatched
    away before they had even held them in their arms," she said.

    "Sometimes, consent was achieved by forgery or fraud. Sometimes women
    signed adoption papers whilst under the influence of medication.

    "Most common of all was the bullying arrogance of a society that
    presumed to know what was best.

    "The hurt did not simply last for a few days or weeks. This was a
    wound that would not heal."

    She also acknowledged children who suffered sexual abuse at the hands
    of their adoptive parents or institutions.

    She announced $5 million funding to improve access to specialist
    support, records tracing and mental health care for those affected by
    forced adoption, and a further $1.5 million to the National Archives
    for a special exhibition.

    'Unimaginable grief'

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott echoed Ms Gillard's apology.

    "I cannot imagine a grief greater than that of a parent and a child
    parted from each other," he said.

    "I cannot imagine an ache greater than the fear that mum didn't want
    me, especially since it wasn't true.

    "But hundreds of thousands of Australians have been adopted, often
    because their mothers had no real choice or were denied any choice,
    and that means that there are hundreds of thousands of mothers who
    hardly knew their children and hundreds of thousands of children who
    hardly knew their mothers.

    "This is a tragedy for them and for our nation and we must atone for
    it.

    "Today our nation acknowledges that this was wrong and that we are
    sorry. Today, we accept responsibility for the pain, the suffering and
    the grief reverberating through tens of thousands of Australian
    families.

    "On behalf of the nation, I join the Prime Minister in apologising."

    Last year the Senate released a report into Australia's forced
    adoption practices.

    It said there were as many as 150,000 adoptions between 1951 and 1975,
    but that it is impossible to know exactly how many were forced.

    'Kidnapped babies'

    Those affected by forced adoptions have been lobbying for an apology
    since Kevin Rudd said sorry to the Stolen Generations in 2008.

    The head of the Apology Alliance, Christine Cole, lost a child through
    forced adoption practices and says the apology has been a long time
    coming.

    "It is an historical day for me and one that I have worked towards
    since 1994, I have been involved in bringing this issue to the public
    and educating the public about what happened to us," she said.

    "I had my baby taken from me in 1969, and I think the use of the term
    forced adoption polarises the actual phenomena of what was going on.

    "What was going on was kidnapping children, kidnapping newborn babies
    from their mothers at the birth, using pillows and sheets to cover
    their face, drugging them as I was drugged, with drugs like sodium
    pentothal, chloral hydrate and other mind-altering barbiturates.

    "It was cruel, it was punitive and then often the mother was
    transported like I was away from the hospital so you had no access to
    your baby."

    Ms Cole says the Government needs to do more to reunite adopted babies
    of the past with their natural parents, and suggests the creation of a
    DNA database.

    "We certainly need a central database because there are many adoptees
    who are undocumented, so they just turned up as if they sort of landed
    here from some alien place," she said.

    'Apology not enough'

    But one woman whose husband was born in Newcastle and forcibly adopted
    in the 1970s says Ms Gillard's apology will do nothing to ease their
    trauma.

    The woman, known as Sydney, says her husband's adopted parents were
    told by a social worker in 1972 that his mother was a 15-year-old
    Newcastle girl with a boyfriend at school who was unable to keep the
    baby.

    Sydney says just this week, documents arrived from an adoption support
    unit explaining that she was in fact 19-years-old, the victim of a
    rape and from a farming community.

    She says lies by social workers have left her husband in the dark.

    "He burst out crying," she said.

    "All his life he was brought up to believe that his parents brought
    him into the world with love.

    "I want the social worker to apologise to my husband's family for
    lying, and being so insensitive."

    Sydney says her husband is devastated by the news.

    "[His birth mother] didn't know who the birth father was," she said.

    "He was a predator. Social workers all along had been lying."

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