:00:05. > :00:08.adoption in court -- industry. In this we's Our World, we look back at
:00:08. > :00:16.the chilling story of Australia's shameful practice of forced
:00:16. > :00:26.adoptions. I always felt worse than murder. I
:00:26. > :00:29.
:00:29. > :00:37.believed for 30 years... I always knew that he was stolen
:00:37. > :00:40.from me. All through the years. was tied up to the side of the bed.
:00:40. > :00:47.My face was pushed into the mattress. They pushed my shoulder
:00:47. > :00:53.down. Imagine having your baby forcibly
:00:53. > :00:57.removed from you at birth. That is what happened to around 300,000
:00:57. > :01:00.women in Australia. But after 50 years and a landmark move, they
:01:00. > :01:10.finally received an apology from the government for this national
:01:10. > :01:38.
:01:38. > :01:43.scandal. They took all our babies. The incomparable bond between a
:01:43. > :01:50.mother and her newborn baby. Amanda Graziano is enjoying the pleasures
:01:50. > :01:58.of nurturing macro one. But what if Raya was forcibly taken, given to a
:01:58. > :02:02.number couple and never seen again by a man do? When they do come out
:02:02. > :02:07.and you get to see them, and hold them, some of them and cuddle them,
:02:07. > :02:17.it is really quite special. Being taken away, it would be
:02:17. > :02:26.
:02:26. > :02:31.heartbreaking. They are your child. Decades ago, childbirth was a very
:02:31. > :02:35.different experience in Australia. Especially for unmarried women. What
:02:35. > :02:43.the cameras do not show is a secret world of coercion and lawbreaking by
:02:43. > :02:49.hospitals, against unwed women, in a practice known as forced adoptions.
:02:49. > :02:53.Natural emission -- emotions conflict with pangs of doubt, guilt
:02:53. > :02:57.and the practical problems confronting her. Monica Jones is one
:02:57. > :03:02.of hundreds of thousands of women who lived through the nightmare of
:03:02. > :03:10.forced adoptions. She lost a son and a daughter, in an adoption she never
:03:10. > :03:18.wanted, and which has traumatised her ever since. I went to Crown
:03:18. > :03:24.Street on the 25th of April. 1966. I remember writing at the hospital. I
:03:24. > :03:30.do not remember anything else until about a month later. I remember
:03:30. > :03:36.waking up in a corridor. Blood was on my legs. That is the only part of
:03:36. > :03:44.Crown Street that I remember. 1960s, she had been young and free
:03:45. > :03:51.and your she became pregnant. She travelled to Sydney to give birth.
:03:51. > :03:55.She arrived at the Crown Street Womens Hospital. For thousands of
:03:55. > :04:05.women, it is now a daemonic place of anguished memories. Crown Street was
:04:05. > :04:08.
:04:08. > :04:14.at the centre of the forced to adopt should world. -- forced adoption.
:04:14. > :04:19.was punished because I had sex before I was married and got caught.
:04:19. > :04:25.They told me that if I had my baby I would do the right thing by it and
:04:25. > :04:32.give it up for adoption. That was drilled into me. But I was not fit
:04:32. > :04:42.to mother it. She remembers being drugged but unaware of signing an
:04:42. > :04:44.
:04:44. > :04:53.adoption consent form. You can't let go of people looking at you as if
:04:53. > :05:00.you were a bit of dirt. Monica Posner hospital records hint at her
:05:00. > :05:04.treatment. On one page, and unknown to her, the chilling initials, UB-,
:05:04. > :05:11.were stamped. That was hospital shorthand for unmarried mother, baby
:05:11. > :05:21.for adoption. I always felt worse than a murderer. Because I believed
:05:21. > :05:23.
:05:23. > :05:32.for 30 years, that I had to my babies. That was the way I felt.
:05:32. > :05:41.What sort of person would let someone take their baby? I've never
:05:41. > :05:48.read -- forget begging to see her and not being allowed. Walking away
:05:48. > :05:58.from the hospital knowing that your baby was still there and bringing
:05:58. > :06:03.
:06:03. > :06:08.them up, and what I found from my records, what they did to me.
:06:08. > :06:12.was no official policy, but in postwar conservative Australia,
:06:12. > :06:17.hospitals came to routinely coerce young, pregnant, unmarried women,
:06:17. > :06:26.into supplying the growing demand for adoptions. The women's shameful
:06:26. > :06:29.be turned into an adoption game. For the thousands and thousands of
:06:29. > :06:36.pregnant teenagers who were brought into hospitals like this one in
:06:36. > :06:40.Sydney, long since closed, experience was terrifying. To be
:06:40. > :06:43.brought into small room site this by a social worker and a nurse, who
:06:43. > :06:49.spent hours persuading the gale of the awful consequences of giving
:06:49. > :06:59.birth outside wedlock. Feeling tearful, coerced and bewildered, put
:06:59. > :07:05.a signature on a consent form. hospital acts as one of Victoria's
:07:05. > :07:10.adoption agencies. It arranged 355 adoptions last year. The moment a
:07:10. > :07:16.teenager was led into an office to sign was recorded by the cameras.
:07:16. > :07:22.This was a sanitised version of reality. How do you feel giving the
:07:22. > :07:28.baby up for adoption? I know it will be hard but I will try my best.
:07:28. > :07:34.think you will regret it later? hope not. It is something I will
:07:34. > :07:38.have to find out. Hospitals wanted to give the appearance of
:07:38. > :07:44.cooperation and consent, but the truth was that women were drugged,
:07:44. > :07:48.had signatures forged, and were intimidated on a systematic scale.
:07:49. > :07:58.Once the hospital had the name on the adoption consent form, the
:07:59. > :08:05.
:08:05. > :08:09.chances of a mother keeping her baby were all but over. Maureen Melville
:08:09. > :08:17.was another pregnant teenagers subject to our bearable by her
:08:17. > :08:25.social worker. -- unbearable. Her idea was to wear me down. Made me
:08:25. > :08:32.feel that I was inadequate being a mother. She had her agenda. That was
:08:32. > :08:39.to get my baby from me. I looked over and I saw the nurse taking this
:08:39. > :08:47.crying baby out of the room. Of course, I was thinking, my baby,
:08:47. > :08:55.where's my baby? I was crying out to my baby but nobody was listening. It
:08:55. > :09:00.was as if I was not there. To them, I was not there. What they need it
:09:00. > :09:08.was done. They got the baby they wanted. I just remember standing
:09:08. > :09:16.under the shower and crying and crying. Because... My babe -- my
:09:16. > :09:18.body is telling me that I just had a baby, but I have no baby.
:09:18. > :09:27.records were also secretly stamped with life changing initials for
:09:27. > :09:37.adoption. I will never ever forget what they did to me until the day I
:09:37. > :09:41.
:09:41. > :09:46.die. I hold them responsible. For all the illness and the pain and
:09:46. > :09:56.suffering that I have suffered from the loss of my baby. They took all
:09:56. > :09:59.
:09:59. > :10:09.our babies. How dare they. Take our babies. And just say, they are borne
:10:09. > :10:12.
:10:12. > :10:16.on two adopted parents. Social workers were the ones usually
:10:16. > :10:20.employed to intimidate pregnant teenagers into signing. This woman
:10:20. > :10:28.was one of them. She does not want her face or name shown, but says
:10:28. > :10:32.every kind of coercion was applied. The phrasing was along the lines of,
:10:32. > :10:37.you are being selfish if you keep your child, you are being selfish to
:10:37. > :10:40.yourself because you will not get a job, you will not get married, life
:10:40. > :10:46.will be harder, you are being selfish to the baby because it will
:10:46. > :10:50.not have as good a lifestyle, and you are also being selfish to these
:10:50. > :10:55.adoptive parents, who cannot have a baby off their own and they will
:10:55. > :11:01.love your child, love this child. You are bringing shame on your
:11:01. > :11:05.family, in embarrassment in town. That sort of thing. She says that
:11:05. > :11:09.she is now remorseful and regrets what she did. But she says no-one,
:11:09. > :11:16.no matter how distressed they were, were allowed to leave her office
:11:16. > :11:21.until they signed a consent form. They were seen as a nuisance,
:11:21. > :11:26.troublemakers, Time wasters. Just signed the paper, have your baby and
:11:26. > :11:31.go. Let's get the system rolling. The decision to have the baby
:11:31. > :11:35.adopted is a ready-made for her. it was not just social workers,
:11:35. > :11:39.there is, nurses and administrators are systematically and illegally
:11:39. > :11:45.forced the teenagers to hand over their babies. These medical staff
:11:45. > :11:49.give glimpses into the hardened attitudes of the time. I do like to
:11:49. > :11:55.let the Goellner, if she particularly wants to know, most of
:11:55. > :12:05.them do, the type of work the adopting father would do. The two
:12:05. > :12:11.never meet. This nurse was also questioned about how adoption work,
:12:11. > :12:15.especially when it came to young, unmarried women. Do you exert any
:12:15. > :12:22.pressure at or on the gals? I know you have a list of people waiting
:12:22. > :12:30.for babies. Don't you have pressure put upon you to persuade them to
:12:30. > :12:35.give up their babies? Not really. If there is any buyers, and I do not
:12:35. > :12:43.think there is a bias, but it would be in the opposite direction.
:12:43. > :12:49.Because we are all young enough to be able to identify with the gals.
:12:49. > :12:55.Lilly Arthur remembers it differently. She recalled the cold
:12:55. > :12:59.nature of treatment by hospital staff. Nobody spoke to you. You are
:12:59. > :13:09.basically locked up in the ward. With other young ladies all young
:13:09. > :13:14.
:13:14. > :13:19.mothers. They just came and shoved medication at you. That was it. And
:13:19. > :13:25.then just before I gave birth, I was tied up to the side of the bed. My
:13:25. > :13:31.face was pushed into the mattress. I pushed my shoulder down. I delivered
:13:31. > :13:36.my son, they took him straight out and hit him. She says that her
:13:36. > :13:46.innocence was robbed, not by pregnancy, but by the brutal removal
:13:46. > :13:48.
:13:48. > :13:53.of her newborn son. I was in a state of madness, thinking that this
:13:53. > :13:59.child... Realising that he was gone forever. The shame was not with me.
:13:59. > :14:09.It was with society. That could not bring itself to look after young
:14:09. > :14:15.
:14:16. > :14:20.people like myself. It is where the shame belongs. The 1960s brought
:14:20. > :14:26.sexual liberation, and invigorating decade, where the oppressiveness of
:14:26. > :14:36.conformity was submerged by and are providing new sense of freedom. --
:14:36. > :14:36.
:14:36. > :14:41.and electrifying new sense. At least for some. For a less privileged
:14:42. > :14:46.majority, the existing constraints of obligation, duty and now,
:14:46. > :14:56.especially in marriage, persisted. Pregnancy outside the structure of
:14:56. > :15:13.
:15:13. > :15:20.wedlock remained a suffocating Tabou. But is -- I always knew my
:15:20. > :15:30.son was stolen. I always knew that he was stolen from me. I carried the
:15:30. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:41.resentment with me. One day I'm going to find him and tell him.
:15:41. > :15:44.
:15:44. > :15:49.Everyone? Yes. Adoption surpasses losing a child through death.
:15:49. > :15:52.their decision to give up a baby, many single mothers overlook the
:15:52. > :15:56.reaction upon them. Psychiatrists believe that single women often
:15:56. > :16:03.grieve for the loss of their babies. Some fall pregnant a second
:16:03. > :16:08.time to compensate. The medical world knew the facts that mother and
:16:08. > :16:17.child separation could bring. But in adoption industry has -- had
:16:18. > :16:24.emerged. In one year alone, 10,000 adoptions were arranged. Including
:16:24. > :16:28.one for this married couple. They were unaware that people like them
:16:28. > :16:38.were getting babies from traumatised and armed wet mothers. Happy with
:16:38. > :16:39.
:16:39. > :16:46.him? Yes.Couldn't you have children of your own? The doctors did not
:16:46. > :16:51.give us too much hope. We had two miscarriages. Possibly a third. They
:16:51. > :17:01.didn't give us too much hope so we applied for a adoption. We are sorry
:17:01. > :17:01.
:17:01. > :17:05.we didn't do it earlier. Will you have more children? Yes. Definitely.
:17:05. > :17:13.Now they must wait patiently for the fulfilment of the 30 day consent
:17:13. > :17:15.period. This couple left with the dreams fulfilled. Dreams like this
:17:15. > :17:22.often hit the ghastly reality that many babies were priced from their
:17:22. > :17:32.mothers. Adopting parents rarely knew what was going on in their
:17:32. > :17:36.moment of innocent euphoria. adoption, this child will escape the
:17:36. > :17:41.handicap of its birth. The real mother will never set eyes on him,
:17:41. > :17:48.and with all the love from the new Paris, he may never feel the loss.
:17:48. > :17:53.In this case, one woman's loss could turn out to be someone else's gain.
:17:53. > :17:57.The forced adoption scandal in Australia became the subject of a
:17:57. > :18:03.year-long Senate enquiry. Hundreds of women testified regarding their
:18:03. > :18:08.appalling experiences. The head of the enquiry concluded that there had
:18:08. > :18:10.been systematic abuse of women's rights over several decades. Forced
:18:10. > :18:14.adoptions had become an institutionalised practice that
:18:14. > :18:18.exploited the social conditions of the day to supply a childless
:18:18. > :18:26.married couples with babies. Every kind of excessive pressure was
:18:26. > :18:30.documented. There was forgery of signatures on consent forms. There
:18:30. > :18:33.were forms that were not signed. Women were being pressured under the
:18:33. > :18:40.influence of drugs that they had been given during and after the
:18:40. > :18:46.birth. They did not have a capacity, they were not legally
:18:46. > :18:52.competent at that time to sign forms. Every form of coercion and
:18:52. > :18:56.dodgy practice you could think of, we heard about it. In recent years,
:18:56. > :19:02.some of the women had tried to bring prosecutions against the doctors and
:19:02. > :19:06.social workers involved. Too much time has gone by. They could not
:19:06. > :19:10.find witnesses, there has not been the evidence. At the end of all
:19:10. > :19:16.this, there have been convictions and no one has been held to
:19:16. > :19:24.account. The anguish inflicted on the mothers, fathers and children at
:19:24. > :19:29.the centre of the story. -- for the. The sorrow and suffering of
:19:29. > :19:35.forced adoption. In place of legal accountability, there has come
:19:35. > :19:39.something else. An official and national apology. Today, this
:19:39. > :19:43.parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes
:19:43. > :19:48.responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that
:19:48. > :19:58.forced the separation of mothers from their babies which created a
:19:58. > :20:02.
:20:02. > :20:08.lifelong legacy of pain and suffering. The former prime minister
:20:08. > :20:12.said tens of thousands of women had been profoundly wrong. You were
:20:12. > :20:15.given false assurances. You are forced to endure the coercion and
:20:15. > :20:25.brutality of practices that were unethical, dishonest and in many
:20:25. > :20:28.
:20:28. > :20:38.cases yearly cold. -- many cases, illegal. To those who have fought
:20:38. > :20:56.
:20:56. > :21:02.for the truth to be heard, we hear respite from the horror of forced
:21:02. > :21:09.adoptions, at least for some. Carolyn Brown had her son taken, and
:21:09. > :21:19.is one of those who spent a lifetime finding him. Now she and Mark have
:21:19. > :21:22.
:21:22. > :21:27.been reunited. Catching up on a lifetime of absences, experiences
:21:27. > :21:35.and losses has not been easy. For both, it has left an unyielding
:21:35. > :21:42.legacy of regret. I have grieved for the last 38 years. It is anger. It
:21:42. > :21:49.is regret. I have never regretted anything in my life, except for not
:21:49. > :21:59.fighting. That is the regret. He did not fight. I gave up. That has
:21:59. > :22:05.haunted me all of my life. No. That is the biggest regret that. I did
:22:05. > :22:15.not fight hard enough. For Mark, meeting his real mother has brought
:22:15. > :22:16.
:22:16. > :22:26.joy, but also an erasable confusion. I find that today, people ask me,
:22:26. > :22:35.
:22:35. > :22:45.how does it feel? I am still screwed. In my mind. My birth
:22:45. > :22:50.
:22:50. > :22:56.certificate says different things. I am Mark Douglas Hartley. Eventually,
:22:56. > :22:58.by the 1970s, laws, culture and attitude evolved. Single mothers
:22:58. > :23:04.were granted financial rights, giving them greater independence.
:23:04. > :23:10.Grand scale it -- adoptions dwindled, as IVF became more of an
:23:10. > :23:17.option. Those changes have continued to this day. The controls on modern
:23:17. > :23:22.adoptions, both strict are now unavoidable. Unmarried women now no
:23:22. > :23:32.longer subject to barbaric and insensitive treatment by unethical
:23:32. > :23:37.
:23:37. > :23:40.health professionals. For those whose youth and childbearing years
:23:40. > :23:48.coincided with the cruel decades of forced adoptions, the memories
:23:48. > :23:51.remain searing and indeed -- enduring. Many went on to have other
:23:51. > :23:58.families in and out of wedlock. For generations of women, finally
:23:58. > :24:01.getting an apology rings only limited relief in a lifetime spent
:24:01. > :24:09.recoiling from a penetrating sense of injustice, and the loss of the
:24:09. > :24:15.child. I will probably find some satisfaction in it, but I cannot
:24:15. > :24:21.find healing. Just some satisfaction that it has been at watched --
:24:21. > :24:30.acknowledged. They treated me with contempt. Apologies mean nothing,
:24:30. > :24:35.because they had the opportunity to give them to me at the time. I could
:24:35. > :24:45.have taken them on board, but not any more. It is too late for me. I
:24:45. > :24:47.
:24:47. > :24:52.am to chronic in my situation. funny thing is, most of us mothers
:24:52. > :24:58.thought it was just me. I had no idea there were hundreds of
:24:58. > :25:03.thousands of other women like me. I always felt that I was the strange
:25:03. > :25:13.one. I was the one who had this horrible secret, and if it ever got
:25:13. > :25:19.
:25:19. > :25:23.out, --... I could have been a good mother to them. I have been a good