Nicola Sturgeon fights back tears as she apologises to 60,000 Scottish mothers who lost children in forced adoption scandal between the 1950s and 1970s saying ‘the horror of what happened to these women is almost impossible to comprehend’
- The outgoing First Minister offered a ‘sincere, heartfelt and unreserved’ apology
- Mostly unmarried women affected by the policy between 1950s and the 1970s
Nicola Sturgeon fought back tears today as she apologies to tens of thousands of Scottish mothers forced to give up their children for adoption in a scandal lasting decades.
The outgoing First Minister offered a ‘sincere, heartfelt and unreserved’ apology to as many as 60,000 women, many of them unmarried, who were affected by the policy between the 1950s and the 1970s.
In a statement at Holyrood todays she said: ‘The horror of what happened to these women is almost impossible to comprehend.’
In one of her final acts at the Scottish Parliament in her role, Ms Sturgeon condemned the practice, with campaigners watching from the public gallery.
‘We can acknowledge the terrible wrongs that were done. And we can say with one voice that we are sorry,’ she said.
‘So today, as First Minister, on behalf of the Scottish Government, I say directly to the mothers who had their babies taken away from them, to the sons and the daughters who were separated from their parents, to the fathers who were denied their rights and to families who have lived with this legacy: for the decades of pain that you have suffered, I offer today a sincere, heartfelt and unreserved apology.
‘We are sorry.’
The outgoing Scotland’s First Minister offered a ‘sincere, heartfelt and unreserved’ apology to as many as 60,000 women, many of them unmarried, who were affected by the policy between the 1950s and the 1970s.
Scottish Labour MSP Monica Lennon, who has campaigned for an apology to be given to women forced to give up children
Ms Sturgeon, who has no children, has previously spoken of her own maternity anguish.
In September 2016, she revealed she once suffered a miscarriage in 2011 and spoke publicly about the anguish of losing a baby aged 40.
She said today that until the late 1970s, forced adoption was ‘relatively common’ in Scotland, with ‘many thousands of children’ taken from their mothers.
These women were ‘forced or coerced’ into adoption by charities, churches, health professionals and social services, Ms Sturgeon said, adding some of them suffered ‘physical mistreatment or abuse’ while others were ‘denied appropriate healthcare’.
She added that mothers were ‘consistently lied to’ about the adoption process, and given ‘no information about what was happening’.
Ms Sturgeon said: ‘When they did object, they were bullied or ignored.
‘Some women were never even allowed to hold their babies, most never got the chance to say a proper goodbye. And many were threatened with terrible consequences if they ever tried to make contact with their child.
‘For these mothers it was a living nightmare, a nightmare from which they have never truly been able to wake.
‘The grief, heartbreak and shame of what happened has been a constant throughout their lives.’
The First Minister told MSPs that the issuing of a formal apology by governments was an action reserved for ‘the worst injustices in our history’.
She added: ‘Without doubt the adoption practices that prevailed in this country for decades during the 20th century fit that description.’
An apology to those affected has been a ‘very long time coming’, she added.
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