Baby mix-up scandal women now planning legal action against adoption society

The women at the centre of the St Patrick's Guild baby mix-up scandal are seeking court approval to bring lawsuits against the former adoption society.

A joint application on behalf of Helen Maguire (71) and Christine Skipsey (52) was filed with the High Court by their solicitors last week, the Irish Independent has learned.

More >> Baby mix-up scandal women now planning legal action against adoption society

Spain 'stolen baby' discovers she was willingly given up for adoption after DNA test finds biological family

A woman who had been declared Spain’s first identified “stolen baby” has discovered her biological family actually gave her up willingly at birth.

Ines Madrigal, 50, convinced a Madrid court last year that she had been one of the thousands of babies snatched from their mothers as a newborn during the dictatorial rule of Gen. Francisco Franco, becoming somewhat of a poster girl for the cause.

More >> Spain 'stolen baby' discovers she was willingly given up for adoption after DNA test finds biological family

DNA database helps one of Spain's 'stolen babies' find family

The first woman recognised by Spanish courts as one of the “stolen babies” of the Franco dictatorship has discovered her biological family thanks to a DNA database.

But Inés Madrigal, 50, has also said she learned from her newly discovered relatives that her mother gave her up voluntarily.

More >> DNA database helps one of Spain's 'stolen babies' find family

• First of Spain’s confirmed “stolen babies” finds family through DNA bank
• Crusader for Spain's abducted babies finds biological family

Touching moment half sisters meet birth mother 60 YEARS after she was forced to give them up because parents wouldn’t accept mixed-race kids

THIS is the touching moment half sisters met their birth mum for the first time - more than 60 years after was forced to give them up for adoption.

Kathleen Fraser Jackson was just three months old when her mum gave her away over fears of prejudice against mixed-race children in the UK in the 1950s.

More >> Touching moment half sisters meet birth mother 60 YEARS after she was forced to give them up because parents wouldn’t accept mixed-race kids

Irish widow, 83, reunited with daughter she was forced to give up for adoption over 60 years ago

AN Irish great-great-grandmother has been reunited with her daughter more than six decades after she was forced to give her up for adoption as a baby.

Margaret Sweeney, 83, and Cathy, 62, met in an emotional episode of the ITV series Long Lost Family last week – the first time the widow had seen her daughter since she was a six-week-old infant named Imelda.

More >> Irish widow, 83, reunited with daughter she was forced to give up for adoption over 60 years ago

Mothers fight for justice over forced adoptions

In 1969, at the age of 19, she was gang raped and forced to give up the resulting baby for adoption — a baby boy she wanted to keep.

More >> Mothers fight for justice over forced adoptions

• Nineteen, pack raped and made to give up her baby: A shocking story of forced adoption

Forced Adoption to supply UK's Slave Trade from Gerry Hannah on Vimeo.

Woman tells court she was coerced into giving up baby in 1979

A woman has claimed before the High Court she was coerced into having her baby daughter adopted nearly 40 years ago when she was 16 years old.

The woman is suing the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) and accredited adoption agency, Cúnamh, alleging personal injuries and breach of constitutional rights by adoption of her baby in 1979.

More >> Woman tells court she was coerced into giving up baby in 1979

The Little-Known Tragedy of Forced Adoptions in East Germany

When Uwe Mai thinks about his childhood, he sees the Saale River. Bending gently, it flowed past his parents' home in Calbe just south of Magdeburg. He only had to dash across the road and down some steps to reach the riverbank, lined with big old trees to climb and rocks to skip across the water.

More >> The Little-Known Tragedy of Forced Adoptions in East Germany

The stolen children: 'Hundreds' of babies were taken from their mothers to be adopted in Sweden...

Hundreds of the at least 8,000 children that the Chilean government fear were stolen from their parents and trafficked out of the country to be adopted in Western nations during the Pinochet dictatorship were taken to Sweden.

They have grown up in well-heeled suburbs outside the Swedish capital, in big cities and small towns all over the country, believing that they were abandoned by their mothers in infancy.

More >> The stolen children: 'Hundreds' of babies were taken from their mothers to be adopted in Sweden...

Women recall maternity homes as ‘shamed-filled’ prisons

Karen Wilson Buterbaugh was 16 in the fall of 1965 when she got pregnant by her steady boyfriend. Terrified and in denial, she hid her growing body under an oversized sweater for five months. When she could no longer hide the pregnancy, she finally told her parents.

They shipped her off to a maternity home without telling her where she was going.

More >> Women recall maternity homes as ‘shamed-filled’ prisons

Special Report: Women forced to give up babies for adoption still failed by State bodies

Teenager Jackie Foley was told to sign a consent form under a fictitious name in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home. Her son was adopted and given a bogus name. Nearly half a century later, her treatment at the hands of State agencies has been as cold-hearted as that of the nuns, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

JACKIE Foley was just 16 years old in 1974 when she signed a consent form in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home form to have her son adopted. She didn’t sign her own name.

More >> Special Report: Women forced to give up babies for adoption still failed by State bodies

The maternity homes where ‘mind control’ was used on teen moms to give up their babies

Karen Wilson Buterbaugh was 16 in the fall of 1965 when she got pregnant by her steady boyfriend. Terrified and in denial, she hid her growing body under an oversized sweater for five months. When she could no longer hide the pregnancy, she finally told her parents.

They shipped her off to a maternity home without telling her where she was going.

More >> The maternity homes where ‘mind control’ was used on teen moms to give up their babies

Protest expected over NSW adoption changes

Hundreds of people are expected to protest outside NSW parliament over planned changes to the state's adoption laws.

The Berejiklian government is proposing to streamline the process of granting the guardianship of children or adopting them out.

More >> Protest expected over NSW adoption changes

NSW government to introduce forced adoptions bill

About 100 people joined a snap protest outside New South Wales Parliament on November 7 to oppose the state Coalition government’s attempt to amend the NSW Adoption Act 2000 and allow for a new generation of forced adoptions.

Speakers warned the proposed changes would institutionalise forced adoptions and raise the rate of Aboriginal and poor children being stolen from their families. 

More >> NSW government to introduce forced adoptions bill

US calls for transparency from Irish State on child abuse and forced adoptions

Towards Transitional Justice: Recognition, Truth-telling, and Institutional Abuse in Ireland, a conference at Boston College this week, starts a conversation about the need for greater transparency on the part of the Irish State in its response to historic abuse in Child Residential Institutions, Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and the nation’s closed, secret and forced adoption system. 

More >> US calls for transparency from Irish State on child abuse and forced adoptions

Demand for inquiry into Ireland’s ‘secretive’ forced adoption programme

A fresh investigation should be opened into Ireland’s forced adoption system in mother and baby homes, a report recommended yesterday as lawyers criticised continuing secrecy on the part of the authorities.

The final report of the three-year Clann Project, an initiative to establish the truth of what happened to unmarried mothers and their adopted children, also calls for the Irish government to give those affected statutory rights to access their files.

More >> Demand for inquiry into Ireland’s ‘secretive’ forced adoption programme

• Forced adoption report calls for new investigation
• Horrors of Irish Mother and Baby Homes revealed in new report
• Heartbreaking report reveals over 2,000 Irish children were 'sold' to the US for adoption from Mother and Baby Homes
• 'I WAS PETRIFIED' Irish mum who has reunited with the daughter she was forced to give up in Mother and Baby Home in 1970s reveals ‘we were classed as scum’
• Mother and baby homes commission refuses to hold hearings in public – Ireland

Forced adoption report calls for new investigation

A new investigation should be opened into Ireland’s forced adoption system in mother and baby homes, a report has said.

The final report of the three-year Clann Project also calls for the Government to give those affected by the scandal statutory rights to access their files.

More >> Forced adoption report calls for new investigation

Where’s my baby? How Canada confronted the scandal of forced adoption

It had been 50 years since Sandra Jarvie was told to sign a form consenting to give up her newborn baby. Yet when she tried to talk about it, all those decades later, her voice faltered, and her words were almost trapped.

More >> Where’s my baby? How Canada confronted the scandal of forced adoption

State warned on adoption violations

The State has been urged to ensure family members of children who were forcibly disappeared through adoption or unidentified burials while in institutional care are given information about their fate — and warned that a similar system in Spain constituted crimes against humanity.

On UN International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said enforced disappearance is widely considered one of the gravest possible human rights violations.

More >> State warned on adoption violations

Pope denounces forced adoptions of Irish children born to unwed mothers

Pope Francis on Sunday denounced how Irish children were "robbed of their innocence and taken from their mothers" by Catholic-run institutions that put them up for adoption to erase the shame of having been born to unwed mothers.

More >> Pope denounces forced adoptions of Irish children born to unwed mothers