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Established in 2010, our campaign is run entirely by volunteers with lived experience.
MAA is a UK based non-profit organisation campaigning for mothers and babies who were separated by the forced adoption practices implemented between the end of the Second World War and the late 1980s. During those decades, vulnerable unwed mothers were bullied and coerced so their babies could be taken for adoption.
We estimate that at least 500,000 people, are affected, the number is likely to be far higher.
This includes mothers, their babies – now adult adoptees, fathers, and family members.
The impact of adoption trauma ripples through the generations.
It is worth noting that not all babies who were taken from their mothers went on to be adopted.
Recent investigations show that some children languished in care for years. Some died.
These historic forced family separation practices were enabled and funded by the State to ensure a supply of babies for prospective adopters.
We seek a formal Government apology for the many injustices and human-rights contraventions that took place, and for the cruel and callous treatment meted out by Church organisations, Social Services and by medical professionals in the National Health Service.
The apology must be bolstered by fully funded measures of reparation, including access to records, support measures for those dealing with mental and physical health issues, assistance with searching for lost family members – and support and help with the fragile process of reunion, to ensure that these fractured relationships will last.
Support must be properly overseen, fully managed and facilitated by government and available to anyone affected.
The impact is lifelong.
Unmarried mothers were unsupported then, and remain so now. There is nothing available to help women living with this trauma. The profound lifelong impact on adoptees has been almost entirely ignored.
We want a formal apology similar to that issued in 2013 by Australian PM, Julia Gillard, who apologised unreservedly to mothers, adoptees, fathers and families impacted by forced adoption in Australia. The PM promised that money would be set aside for the provision of extensive support for those whose lives had been blighted.
We have watched apologies in other nations and have learned what works and what does not.
We will not rest until we have justice.
