Victoria’s forced adoptions reveal harrowing tales of suffering
Thelma Adams was 14 and pregnant when she was sent to an institution where she was drugged and woke without a baby.
Victoria
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Hundreds of Victorian women will never be reunited with children forcibly taken from them and adopted, with a state inquiry told that doctored paperwork and fake birth certificates had erased their true identities.
Many babies taken from their mums between the 1950s and 1970s in Victorian hospitals and religious medical institutions had birth certificates altered or falsified, witnesses at the ongoing Historical Forced Adoption Inquiry have revealed.
The inquiry, being carried out by the Victorian parliament, will hand down its final report in July.
The lack of reliable paper records means many mothers and their now grown children can never be reunited, and dozens have made submissions to the inquiry revealing their lifelong trauma.
Geelong woman Thelma Adams, 62, gave birth at the age of 14, in 1973. Her parents made her hide the fact she was carrying a baby before placing her in an institution in her third trimester.
Two days before the birth she was sedated and woke without a baby.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she told the Sunday Herald Sun.
She has battled depression throughout her life as a result of the loss, trauma, shame and bullying from medical staff during her pregnancy.
She has since managed to make contact with her son and now runs a support group for other women who experienced the same thing.
Ms Adams wants the government to pay for counselling services and medication that many women need as a result of the government-sanctioned practice.
Victorian Adoption Network for Information and Self Help manager Charlotte Smith said: “Mothers were shamed, stigmatised and injured, both physically and emotionally. The impacts are lifelong.
“The impact of separation on mothers and infants is better understood now and there is some specialist support available, but many want justice – they want the individuals and institutions responsible to admit their wrongs and offer restitution.”
Victorian politicians made an official apology in 2012.
Inquiry chair Natalie Suleyman said hearing the stories had been “extremely emotional”.
“You can never right these wrongs, but governments need to do these reports and do justice with tangible outcomes,” she said.
Advocates are calling for the inquiry to recommend removing the statutes of limitations so the women and the adopted children can make compensation claims against the institutions.
Advocates say the change would be similar to reforms introduced in Victoria in 2019 that made it easier for victims to sue organisations for child abuse.
Shine Victorian general manager Emma Hines said at least 10 cases had been lodged or were being prepared for the courts, but she expected many more to come.
“It is now universally accepted that this practice was horrific,” she said.
“Many of the organisations that did this still exist – they were hospitals and churches – and in my opinion this category of people fall into the same category as sexual abuse survivors.”
Adopted children who are now adults told the inquiry they had suffered trauma, believing they had been abandoned.
Many have been unable to find their birth mother due to fake paper work and bad records, while others reported trauma from the process of reconnection.
IDENTITIES ERASED
Four days after giving birth to her little boy in Melbourne, June Smith had the child dragged from her arms before she was put on a cocktail of drugs to keep her sedated.
As a 19-year-old still healing from birth, and heavily drugged, she was forced to sign papers that meant she was no longer a mother in the eyes of society.
Sixty years later, Ms Smith has had three more children but still grieves for the son she named Michael.
“I looked for him, but he doesn’t want to know me,” she said.
“He is 60 years old now, but he grew up believing I didn’t want him.
“It was disgusting how they treated us. We were drugged and bullied into signing forms.”
Ms Smith’s story is one told by hundreds of Victorian mothers, often in whispered confessions to loved ones or in therapy groups.
The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Forced Adoptions has also heard from some of the thousands of children who grew up in adopted homes, unaware that they had not been abandoned but instead cruelly taken.
Many have found their birth certificates to be doctored and the paper trail of their heritage wiped out.
Some are even turning to genealogy websites in the hopes of finding their long-lost relatives.
“My biggest shock after my discovery was that I had two birth certificates,” said one 59-year-old woman.
”I was shocked, my whole identity erased.
“I really cannot come to terms with this fact, that the government set out to lie and deceive me for 59 years as to my real identity.”
QUEST TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME
On Christmas Eve, 1963, 17-year-old Lyn Kinghorn gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in Melbourne.
For a week she nursed the bundle of joy. Then on New Year’s Eve, nurses took her baby to the nursery and physically removed Ms Kinghorn from the hospital.
“I went to one of the sisters begging for help. She put her arms around me and said: ’Go home and be a good girl’.
“I had a week with my baby, loving her, and then they took her. They never discussed it with me.
“They bound my breasts to stop the milk and they took my baby. It wasn’t a forced adoption, it was an abduction,” Ms Kinghorn said.
Almost six decades, on Ms Kinghorn has grown children, but she says the trauma of having her child taken from her because she was underage and unwed is a trauma she relives every day.
Unlike many others, Ms Kinghorn was able find her daughter, but rather than a healing reunion it has been a hard and emotional path for both.
“The first 20 years of looking for her was excruciating, but after that it was excruciating trying to get back what we had lost,” she said.
She is calling for the statute of limitations to be lifted so women can claim compensation for what happened to them as minors.
Ms Kinghorn is also suing for damages in the Victorian County Court against the Royal Women’s Hospital and adoption agencies.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about acknowledgment and making these places pay for what they did,” she said.
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