Karen Constantine has published book Taken
The shocking treatment of tens of thousands of women forced to put their babies up for adoption during the 1950s-70s is laid bare in a book by Ramsgate resident and Labour County Councillor Karen Constantine.
‘Taken: Experiences of Forced Adoption’ is 316 pages filled with the voices of the mothers and now-adult children whose lives have been fractured by the practice of sending unmarried mums-to-be, often just teenagers, to mother and baby homes in the UK, where they were then coerced into handing their babies over to be adopted.
The book is also a call to action, a demand for a government apology and adequate support and compensation measures for the huge injustice done to so many thousands of women and babies.
The sheer scale of the practices carried out by organisations and professionals, supported by the State and endorsed by societal attitudes at the time, is shocking. The ongoing trauma of those affected, with no proper apology by the UK government to date, is also distressing.
The estimate is that 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales during the period from 1949 to 1976, but in reality, it’s thought the figure is likely to be closer to 500,000 and, in fact, the last of the homes did not shut until the mid-80s.
Taken tells us that mother and baby homes first appeared in England in 1891; by 1968 there were 172 homes, mainly run by religious bodies. In the 1960s, mother and baby homes catered for between 11,000 and 12,000 unmarried mothers annually. The number of mothers ‘giving up their children’ peaked in 1968 when 16,164 adoption orders were granted.
At the book launch
Karen writes: “The women and girls in these homes all too often experienced significant neglect, were also forced into unpaid manual work within the homes, received poor antenatal care and inhumane mistreatment during labour and postpartum.
“This way, these women who were made to feel extreme shame, who were very often utterly shunned and othered by their families (and their own mothers in particular), excluded from church and community, separated from workplaces and education, without access to any support, were forced – coerced – into surrendering their babies for adoption.
“Both adoption and residency in the mother and baby homes were monetised by way of fees and/or donations to the Church; in some circumstances, the State paid.”
Financial gain runs like a blackened undercurrent for the whole practice. In the book, Karen says: “Private maternity nursing homes were common at the time, often established in large homes, and could easily cater for both respectable married women and the immoral unmarried.
“The powerful network of medical, legal, political, and religious actors were then easily able to steer women in, and to make a profit disguised as providing a socially and morally necessary service.”
Karen’s story
Karen with Daniel
Karen, now 62, was just 15 when she was in St Paul’s mother and baby home in 1978. Taken without her agreement or warning from her home in Stoke-on-Trent, to Coleshill, Birmingham, Karen tells how she was isolated, bullied and coerced by those who were supposedly charged with her care.
She writes: “While living in St Paul’s, I was forced to attend daily mass and undertake heavy manual work, which I did in isolation in the on-site laundry. I received inadequate antenatal care, no preparation for birth and suffered the distress of my roommate going into painful labour in the bedroom we were required to share.
“She, too, was completely unprepared for birth. We were all deliberately uninformed. As I listened helplessly, baffled by her screaming, I knew I was next. This, it seems, was part of my lesson. We should suffer so as not to repeat our mistakes and get ourselves pregnant again.”
She adds: “With no agency, no rights, and no advocate, and left with no options, I duly signed some of the adoption papers under duress. I was coerced. Forced. How else can it be described?”
For Karen, the outcome was not adoption. Somehow, she managed to keep her son Daniel, aided by her Aunt Wyn who advocated for her.
But still stigma, the enforced sense of shame and hardships followed.
Karen writes: “When it became evident that I wouldn’t let them take my infant, I was eventually returned to my family the day before my due date to have my baby in the local maternity hospital.
“There was no assessment of my home circumstances, frequently marred by domestic abuse, and overcrowded (six people in a very small two-bedroomed house). No ongoing assistance was offered. Once the highly valued commodity – the baby – was removed from the equation, the Church’s interest, involvement, and responsibility ceased entirely.
“The pressures this suddenly and inevitably placed on my already struggling family were immense and irreparable (and avoidable) damage was inflicted on family relationships. The subsequent hardship and difficulties my son and I endured, in the years before I found my feet, cannot be minimised…
“{Daniel} and I were often met with a baffling degree of hostility and belittling, bordering at times on hate. We were both universally othered, and this came from all quarters, including family, community and the local authority.”
For others, the outcome was the devastating loss of their babies and the lifelong trauma and grief that followed. For some, it was too much to carry and there are accounts of being sectioned and of suicide.
Impact on adoptees
The impact on adopted people is also shared in Taken with stories from those who grew up often with the perception that they had been given away, unwanted. For many there was a desire to ‘see someone who looked like them’ or a need to know their family medical history.
A sense of not fitting in, or belonging, is recurrent, there are difficulties in seeking out family members because of ill-kept, or even falsified, records,; questions over identity, trauma affecting adult relationships, anger and the effects of the stigma that surrounded illegitimacy.
Susie, who was adopted, says in the book: “It’s like we don’t exist and that these negative things simply didn’t happen to us. I know that’s not going to be very popular politically. They don’t want to be concerned about adoption because it serves the need to provide kids to parents who want them.
“It’s a social justice issue and nobody wants to address the issue of mass mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of people. Nor do they want to learn from it or apply that learning to what’s happening in families now, to children and birth mothers now. Because that’s too expensive. Because to support those mothers properly to keep their babies, to prevent the psychological damage that happens, is enormous, and we adult adoptees are testament to that.”
Inquiry and recommendations
In July 2022, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) headed by Harriet Harman MP published a report which was the culmination of a 10 month inquiry into forced adoption practices.
It recounted the experiences of some of those mothers, sometimes for the first time, and of the children, now grown, and how they continue to be affected by their separation.
The Report included recommendations for improving the support services available to those affected, and that the Government apologise for the irreparable harm that was done.
Measures recommended included the need for an official apology and meaningful reparations including having medical records, collated from several sources, and transferred from analogue to digital format, so that they are accessible, searchable, and form a permanent history.
The report said there should be professional, archivist level support to access and understand records. Potential reunion should then be simplified, minimising waiting times and undertaken as a right belonging to both parties (whilst respecting the wishes and confidentiality of both parties).
Recommendations said all impacted people should be able to access fully funded trauma-informed therapy and DNA tests. The government should consider offering a token amount for the pain and distress caused and a ‘monument’, which could be a sculpture, memorial garden, should be decided in collaboration with those affected by forced adoption.
A national Memorial Day, or something similar, was also recommended so that “across the UK people are encouraged to remember the women and families who suffered, and this time in recent history, when newborn babies were effectively a commodity. A shameful trade.”
UK Government and apologies
In response UK government said it was “sorry on behalf of society for what happened”, but it was not “appropriate for a formal government apology to be given, since the state did not actively support these practices”.
An apology has been issued by Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh authorities, as well as those in Canada and Australia, and the Catholic Church– the UK government is still yet to do so.
It has issued public apologies for transatlantic slave trade; for the “homophobic laws” that criminalised and sanctioned the chemical castration of gay men, such as Alan Turing; the Bloody Sunday events of 1972; the child migration programme 1930–1970 and more recently acknowledgement of the Post Office/Horizon scandal – the question remains when apology will be made to the victims of forced adoption?
The Movement for an Adoption Apology is campaigning for a formal apology. As part of that campaign, in October, Karen met with Minister Janet Daby, who has responsibility for the formal adoption apology in the new Labour government.
She outlined the need for a formal apology and support measures and suggested the Minister and her team should meet with MAA. To date no such meeting has been arranged.
Karen said: “It isn’t hyperbole to state that historic forced adoptions are among the UK’s greatest examples of social injustice, the most extraordinary public scandal that has yet to be adequately addressed by those in power.”
Members of the public are asked to support MAA by signing the petition calling on the Government for an apology at: https://www.change.org/p/demand-an-apology-for-historic-forced-adoptions
Taken and personal stories
Jacqui, member of MAA and an adoptee, Diana, birth mum and MAA head, Mayor Pat Moore and Karen Constantine
After more than a year of research, interviews and writing, a book launch for Taken was held at the Albion Hotel, Ramsgate, on November 19. The event was introduced by Ramsgate mayor Pat Moore and hosted by historian of the welfare state in 20th-century Britain Dr Michael Lambert, whose research outlines how the state was responsible for forced adoptions.
Dr Michael Lambert and Cllr Moore
The launch included an interview with The Isle of Thanet News where Karen spoke about her experience and of those who contributed to Taken and the need for a government apology and support measures.
Diana
Diana, Karen and Kathy from The Isle of Thanet News
Moving readings were given by three contributors to the book, including Diana Defries who now heads the Movement for Adoption Apology.
Diana gave birth as a 16-year-old in the 70s after being groomed and then dumped by an older man. At eight months pregnant she was taken from London to Nazareth House mother and baby home in Southampton, a grim experience but almost overshadowed by the horrific treatment by hospital staff during and after her labour, where she was isolated, ignored and even given medication to stop lactation.
Diana reunited with her daughter in 1992 after her daughter searched for her. At the event she showed a T Shirt given to her by her daughter that says: “May the bridges I burn light the way.’
Diana spoke of her anger and the need for the state to take responsibility, apologise so those coerced into putting their babies up for adoption are vindicated and put in place the measures needed for trauma informed support and access to records for mothers and adoptees.
Jill
Also at the event was adoptee Jill, born in 1950, who told how she was ‘sold’ for twelve shillings {equivalent to 60p} in Deal Magistrates’ Court.
Jill, whose experience is contained in Taken, says her adopted parents were wonderful but she lost them when she was still a young woman.
Jill later found that her birth mother had been 27 and married before and already had a young daughter. She had been separated for more than two years and was desperately trying to get her Decree Nisi so that she and Jill’s father could legally remarry.
Her mum tried desperately to have Jill returned but was thwarted by the Deaconess at the ‘home’ who was determined to have the adoption go through.
Just eight months after what was an unlawful adoption took place on 28 of February 1951, Jill’s birth parents were married.
At the event Jill said although she had loving adoptive parents the state had stolen from her the chance to grow up with her sister, who sadly died from cancer as a young woman, and denied her the chance to hug her mother who also died before Jill had the chance to meet her. Jill did meet her dad and her brother, now passed, her half-sister and other family members but said she is angry at the injustice.
Barry
Barry with Karen at the launch
Among those attending was district councillor Barry Manners who met his birth mother 10 days ago after 58 years apart.
He was taken from his mum in 1966 when he was just two days old.
He was helped in his search by Barnados CAFIS who researched all the records that enabled him to trace his mum Annie.
Barry said: “’It’s not helpful to look back and dwell on our separation. Times were very different. I was fortunate to be adopted into a loving home with parents who did the very best for me. But I do think we should reexamine the processes for adoptees to reconnect with birth parents, where both parties would wish to do so. We also need to ensure there’s ready support and facilitated access to medical histories and other paperwork.
“My adopted parents were both supportive of me tracing my birth family – especially so after so many doctors asked about family medical history.
“It’s been a joy to meet my birth mother who was forced to give me up under unimaginably difficult circumstances. It turns out we share a similar heart condition. In light of my own heart attack earlier this year it would have been helpful to have known that several years ago.
“I’d wanted to find my birth parents but the fear of rejection is a major obstacle in doing so. Ironically, I now know my birth mother had been desperate to trace me, even hiring an investigator. That’s water under the bridge. I’m just happy to know that my birth mother and I can now be part of each other’s lives.”
Barry’s mum Annie
Barry and Annie reunited this month after 58 years apart
For Annie, sharing the experience of herself and Barry is something she wants to do. Now approaching her 80th birthday, Annie said: “Anything that can help people like me to find and be contacted {by their child} is an amazing thing to do.
“All my life I wondered what happened to him, if he was even still alive, it never goes away.
“We did not give up our children easily but with no help and parents that threw you out, what could you do?
“Anything that can help people come together, even late in life, would be amazing. I feel I have been given the greatest gift in the world; I am so thrilled he found me. I know Barry’s adoptive parents gave him a marvellous life but we all need to know from whence we came and our genetic background.
“For most of my life, I never told a soul, it was an absolute taboo subject. The bigotry was so integrated in society, unmarried mothers having illegitimate children were the lowest of the low, people can’t begin to understand that today. There was such a sense of guilt and not a day or a month when I did not think about it.”
Annie says she tried to find Barry but it was much harder in a time where there was no computers or social media and written documentation was sealed.
Of including their reunion in The Isle of Thanet News, Annie said: “I just want it to be easier for other people so anything I can do to make that happen, I would like to do and hope it will make a difference for others in the future.”
Read Taken
Taken is available from https://prampublications.com/product/taken-experiences-of-forced-adoption-paperback/
Karen will also be holding a book signing event at Perico’s in Ramsgate on November 28, from 11am until 1pm.
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