On the first Wednesday of every month since 2017 we have been outside the central family court in London speaking out against all the discrimination, hostility and injustice mothers and children face in family court. The most brutal and draconian of these separations are forced adoptions – when children are adopted without parental consent. Fileon4 Investigates: forced adoption – is it happening today? came to film our picket in September and a brief clip appears in the programme broadcast today.
Join us on Wednesday 7 October – 12.30-1.30pm 42-49 High Holborn, WC1V 6NP
“We’re glad the BBC is here to film as part of the programme File on 4 are making to go out on 6 October about the reality of forced adoptions today. They are interviewing mothers of adopted children, and an adult who was forcibly adopted but is now reunited with her mum. Since SNS started in 2017 a key focus of our campaigning has been to stop forced adoptions.
There has been a lot of publicity recently – including the BBC film Stolen Babies – about historic forced adoptions as if they stopped 40 years ago – but they didn’t. Since the Children Act was ntroduced in 1989 it’s estimated that between 150-180, 000 children have been adopted in the UK ranging from over 7000 a year in England & Wales alone which has now dropped to about 3000 – so that is a victory of sorts but it’s still too many.
90% of adoptions are without parental consent – among the highest level in the world – and children are often only adopted after mothers & families make a long fight in family court to try to stop this most brutal and draconian of separations – the trauma of which lasts a lifetime for both children and their mothers.
When a child is adopted all ties with their birth family are broken – they get a new birth certificate, their name might be changed, they have absolutely no contact with mum/granny/extended family or siblings until they reach 18 when they can try to contact their families if they want to – and many do and many are horrified when they find out that far from being abandoned they were greatly loved and fought for.
Of the mums who SNS has worked with over the years including through our monthly self help meetings, around 10% have had children adopted – many of them were victims of domestic violence which Women Against Rape will speak about, many were women with physical or learning disabilities which Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign will speak about – all were working class mostly single mothers and all faced the sexism, racism, class bias and disability discrimination that even the Ministry of Justice recognised a few years ago, are rampant in family court.
The fact is that once social workers are determined to take a mother’s child/children, they have all the powers of the state available to them, and the mothers face a huge battle to keep their kids – getting no support even what they should be entitled to under S17 of the Children Act. There is no recognition of the importance of the mother/child bond.
And children can be taken for the most spurious of reasons – one mum who’s an immigrant came to us when her two-year old was threatened with adoption – she was taken because social workers said she had caused the child harm because she did not make eye contact with her when she was being interviewed by them and by a psychologist – there had been no actual harm to the child ,but they were determined.
We fought really hard and eventually that child went to live with her aunty, but when mum had another baby, she was taken to court within a couple of days of giving birth – and the police were stationed outside the hospital ward ready to snatch the baby if the court said they could. Luckily we found a good barrister who fought to get her into a mother and baby unit so mum and baby could be together – and after 6 months of basically being locked up in one of those units, she “passed” and was able to keep her child. There was NO difference in the mothering she gave her children, but one got taken away.
There are a number of stories like that which really highlight how arbitrary the decisions made by social workers and too often but not always sanctioned by judges are. One grandmother describes it as social engineering and we agree with that.
The law says that adoption should be a last resort but it’s often the first port of call.
The law says that the child’s welfare is paramount – but it’s ignored and children are treated as commodities.
The law says that parents only need to be “good enough” but mothers are held to standards dictated by social workers – much higher than applies to foster carers and adopters – just look at the children killed by prospective adopters because social workers took no action
Mothers who need help to keep our kids safe must get that support but instead get monitoring blame and punishment
So we are determined to stop children being adopted without their mothers’ consent.”
