Senate inquiry into forced adoptions found barbaric, horrific abuses

Suffering tragedy disadvantage or poverty as your due because of a "higher" being is entenched in many mindsets.
That's how it was with forced adoptions and their link with churchs.
This is a problem.
Good on Gilbert.

A good dose of being aware of the spiritual beyond the material is a human need too many don't get, all the same.

This is about changes that haven't happened with a lot who can't live without organised religion.

For some the church is their only connections with others, and faith so this has to be respected, yet I fear for their fears.

When you lose so tragically with forced adoptions and are all alone I have doubt many might turn to a higher force, and why shouldn't we all, just not churchs dogma and fearmongering.

The old testement is abominable in it's horror stories.
Confusing to anyone who puts their faith in such a book as this.
As for discriminations they're all in there.

That some are the chosen few and others aren't is also problematic.
In the adult world there are no bigger or smaller people, we're all heading in the same direction.

I do admire Catholics like Shirley Swain, what a very fine example of true christianity.

Lot of food for thought in Gilbert's words on this post. Thanks for these.

Birth mother

I'm a forced adoptions target.
The Salvation Army oversaw my adoption even as it was private.
I asked for my records particularly wanting that sheet I signed under duress.
All they gave me was a one page entry and exit form, with little or no needed information on it.
That is they lost or destroyed the important records of my stay with them.
Their excuse was 'you were a private patient so we didn't keep your records'.
It seems as though the public patients have access to more information from the Salvos. than the private ones.
What gives with this.

Mother

I'm today trying to focus on all this.
I am also a target of forced adoptions who was given a sheet to sign when I couldn't for the life of me focus.
How can you focus when you are beyond all trauma and into a place of absolute horrifying bewilderment that life and people can be so absolutely cruel and without humannness.
That signing of the piece of paper which was not my decision at all has haunted me and will never ease up.
The ramifications are an obessional need to understand every fine detail of every piece of paper I have and do ever sign since. Sometimes people "insist" without telling me the whole story behind what I;m signing, this is usually from some government staffer. Wrong and illegal.
People need time to sign for important decisions, and all decisions and other.
Why was that time and allowed focus not given to targets of forced adoptions to sign something so deeply important as this.
Another question is why they asked the target to sign when already another had signed the forms for consent to adopt my baby, others babies.
The law has to speak up about this.
The law was broken with all this, as no one has to sign anything under duress, and surely someone totally traumatised is in no condition to sign a consent for anything.
I didn't even know it was such a consent.
The haunting memories continue as the Senate Inquiry has brought forward again all the terrible realisations of that time ago event, even as I desire above all to be living in the now.
The salvation Army were also the ones who asked me to sign that one piece of paper with my denomination, my hobbies, my etc. and of course put my signature.
That they did this is the most vile of acts imposed on me there, amidst a whole lot of others wrong doings.
I couldn't see properly, so how could I sign properly.
Truth is I never did sign "properly" "legally".
What are the legal people going to do about this kind of flagrant breach of people's rights whereby people have to sign what they don't know the ramifications of?

How often do I have pieces of paper shoved under my nose and a person asking me to sign here, without giving me time to read the articles. It's never ending, and this has to stop. These days I do assert "I need time to read it all" and as I've said it's been rather obsessional and never should have got this far.
Minutia matters to me now, when it shouldn't.
This includes for lesser things than forced adoptions.
We all have that right to know and be focused whenever we have to sign anything.
To be forced to sign, to be coerced to sign anything is something which keeps me from being able to resolve a lot of forced adoptions.
It wasn't lawful.

How can the corporate churchs be above the law?
Why are corporations and governments so slack with these kinds of laws?

I feel for every victim of forced adoptions.
I'm fairly new to this awareness.
Here's something for all who were treated basely at the hands of the Salvation Army.
It's happening all over again to another vulnerable peoples.
www..crikey.com
Find 'Salvation Army on Nauru detention centre services a help?'

There's also a lot to be found about how the Salvos are restricting the refugees access to the internet, along with other restrictions.
Their very good at command and control in it's most vile forms.

What happened with forced adoptions was an atrocity.
Here's yet another one happening in this time.

Gerry

I'll tell you how much they're getting paid for refugees in Nauru = 22million a year.
Not a bad charity collection.
I'm afraid I believe every bit about the injustices imposed on forced adoptions victims.
These kind of things are finally coming out into the open.
The collusion between government and church.

Shameful and no way to get votes or support for anybody except the actual victims.

Total support for the victims of forced adoptions.
Total support for the victims of Nauru.
You're all now aware of what you could never have imagined hey.

Gerry

The evangelism and holier than though have got away with murder with forced adoptions.
Their mission statements should really read
We are here to be cruel to be kind.
Punitive never did work and never will as the Sydney Peace Foundation has said in a lot of it's authentic insights and wisdom.
I can't believe these actually went on.

Sammie (Children's Nanny and Parent of two)

There's no way the churchs can get an exemption from discrimination now.
They are in bed with the government in the deadliest ways.
Bloody inhumane the lot of them.

Hope the victims of forced adoptions get their compensations.
The law wasn't there to protect you years ago and now we see it's not there to protect a lot of us.
Intolerable.

Jane B

There was a huge problem for the girls and women in forced adoptions, they were not married.
We live in a climate where status or rank mean so much to those who can't wake up in the day to the adult world.
In this adult world I agree with the commenter who wrote "there are no bigger or smaller people than anyone else, we're all heading in the same direction". Great meaning there.
Those who are status conscious of course will disagree as they live in the adolescent world of Icons and the like.
These adolescent thinkers or immature thinkers just can't grasp the concept of there being no such thing as status being all there is.

To take the status, as the adolescent non thinkers use this term, of a mother, and make her childless by foul means, to the advantage of another's 'status' in this case the couple adopting being married was shameful.

Truth is that many women don't want marriage because they have noticed the hurts and felt the pains of divorces of their parents. So, to them there is no 'status' in marriage. However in the times of forced adoptions that so called status of marriage was all important.

There's a lot in forced adoptions, and a lot of people I once admired I no longer care for.
Having grown up in a world of 'status conscious' which I left of own volition to rise above such childishness I can now see one thing for sure.

The apology may need to acknowledge that the birth mothers are indeed the mothers.
They were scapegoated when the blame should have been placed of the real demons in all this.

I disagree about the Salvation Army.
After all, yes, they accepted the moneys, always do, but who offers it to them.
This is not all about money. Status anxious and status envy are always counting the sums, however, there's more to this than money.

I'm saddened to see some who have claimed to be status free who now ask people to pay and well for their knowledge, how insane is that.
I've never thought of them as Icons or Heroes yet respected their points of view. I can do this no longer.
Life and social connections are not all about money, though again to the 'status conscious' of course so much if not all is.

One's rank in life has nothing to do with one's humanity.
It never did and never will.

Birth mother

We each have different drivers and no less the mums of forced adoptions, their babies and those who adopted them.

Those who seek Status and Wealth are one's with these as their "drivers". Good luck to them.

There are other drivers namely:
1) Independence
2) Security
3) Creativity

Status oriented are all concerned with where one is "positioned".
In the case of former forced adoptions the victims were placed in subservience to the adopters wishes for a child who wasn't their own, as well as at the mercy of the church run instituions.
The adopters status concerns were that of fitting in with the Jones. That's the strangest status I can think of and the way it all went on the most shameful, and destructive.

Birth mother

I think this forced adoptions can't be resolved without each target focusing on the positive, caring, humane and loving people.
We give the others too much credit by focusing on them.
Time and positive focus is the essence here and we everyone doesn't have enough to dwell on all the nagative destructive people.
They're out there we've met them, I wonder who hasn't, yet the focus can't be healthy if we only see who did (or is doing) what wrong.
What about all those doing the right things, or trying too.

Birth mother

I'm writing on behalf of my close friend who is one of the forcibly made to lose her baby.
We were long time neighbours, and now I visit her often and we share a lot, the good times and not so good.
I've noticed she's going though a lot of reliving that time and think the media has made it obvious to her how wrong it all was.
She knew but not the extent.
I had no idea about others except for her experience.
I think power is the thing that drove both the governments, media and churchs to perpetuate the stereotype of the "unloving mother who abandons her baby".
That stereotype is still around as my friend can testify better than I.
It's been a strange thing as she was really getting on her feet with a lot of social and other supports and then the Senate Inquiry. A good thing, still it did open up a lot of yesterday more fully.

We've noticed certain groups saying they can't tackle the present needs for counselling due the flow on from Inquiry.
The department of Health could possibly look at this, or will they leave it until after the National Apology?
In either case when you've seen a really decent lovable woman mourn and go through some terrible times of sadness due to what she went through you understand how important power brokers need to learn some anti-bullying practices.
They can't keep controlling by puntive means.
As one commenter said, punitive doesn't work, spot on.
It does do a lot of often irreversable human damage.
What's the value of that for anybody. Does it fit in with the yobbo unconscionable thing of putting others down to put oneselves up?

For a while recently I thought my friend was having a break down, it got pretty sad in her life topped off by other family events fairly tragic, she was not able to be a rock for all as she usually is. That's a fact, she makes everybody feel good about themselves except herself.

I comend the victims of forced adptions, as individual as you all are and wish you all much social support as well as professional support.
My question to leave off here is
"Who had the birth mothers best interests at heart when forced adoptions happened?" The answer is no one at all.
These mothers were the ones who were abandoned by everybody. At the mercy of heartless systems.
This is a very tragic injustice.
Tim

NO ONE WITH ANY POWER CAME FORWARD TO PREVENT THIS VAST WAVE OF TRAGEDIES.

People on the sidelines may have looked on with horror yet were powerless to stop forced adoptions.

Tim

There's a lot of literature which writes with wording that is derogatory to many in forced adoptions.
Reliquishment is a term I find so wrong.
Another is gave up for adoption.
Another, to do with the adopters, is they are barren.
Re. the latter: A girl or woman may not be able to bare children yet have the most fertile mind and create a masterpiece of intellectual property or some innovation which changes the world for the better.
Barren is almost straight out of an old bible belt language and to me is obscene.
Giving up one's infant is as if one is lower than and serving another of a higher place than the mother.
Relinquishment is plain too clinical or property oriented.
Loss is the correct word for the infant a birth mother loses.
The language has often been a major stumble block to creative communications in forced and other adoptions.
We need to speak to each other as equals in all this, as we are all human and all in forced adoptions are to be respected, except the people who abused their power or control to the detriment of others lives and livlihoods.
I've been reading a lot about forced adoptions and note how there are many inhumane examples of very poor language which is derogatory toward one or another of the parties involved.
Let's delete the derogatory language.
It's a form of bullying in itself.
The law may use certain terminoly that is not suitable for forced adoptions or other adoptions and may need to progress to using language which is humanised at last.
The hurts from forced adoptions are deep enough, and major for the birth mothers and their infants, yet also very real for the adopters.
I mention here how barren is derogatory and the reason being there are many factors why some girls or women do not have babies, or cannot. It's quite true many women suffer a form of grief also because they cannot conceive their own child, and these women are valuable without being mothers. That some seek to be mothers yet cannot conceive we cannot go there and be critical of this at all. Sensitive, complex and very deep social injustice forced adoptions is.
The examples in history of women who haven't raised children yet are anything but "barren" are plentiful.
The examples of women who've lost babies to adoption and yet never "given them up" or "abandoned them" is also truth we now know.
Thanks Indy
Birth mother
[That they should be labelled, or anyone labelled in a derogatory way is not humane, and serves no constructive purpose for anyone.]

Do know it wasn't my child who became my therapist.
I was never going to allow that kind of history to repeat itself.
The therapist was someone outside of my immediate family.
Someone who came as though a miracle at a time when I was totally aware my second child needed the whole of me, even as I gave up very willingly and lovingly a lot to be available to her as much as humanly possible.

It would not be the only therapy, yet it was valuable to a large extent to help me become aware of my own needs outside that of my childs.
Sometimes I think losing to forced adoptions makes for someone like me not being self assured enough even with the best therapist to give to self in meaningful ways.
Giving to others may come easily, and that may sound odd as I've written I was available to my daughter, yet indeed for most part I was, always will be, most certainly.

I'm available to my lost son also. If and when he ever wants any contact. The reunions were very difficult.
They are not what has been too often shown on the television.
Even as I don't watch this my friends tell me all about these shows.

We can't have another forced adoptions happen.
The pains and inuhmanity which only forgiveness on a very deep level will alleviate is too great.
Grace (2)

I have been contacted by one of my long term friends who reads the mainstream media. I do not read this kind usuaully.

Many would know about this so this is for those who don't.
235d. February 2013 the Herald annouced the Prime Minister will formally apologise to all the targets of forced adoptions, at time 10.30am, on 21st March 2013.

My very influential friend, well known to many, also writes: "I offer my heatflet good feelings for so many who have fought for this acknowledgement" .
I would write separately my heart goes out to all who did or didn't fight for this acknowledgement and it's follow through. Not everyone was able to fight against the tragedies they'd experienced, it takes a lot of needed energy and time as well as recalling what is so painful.

The Commonwealth apology or ask for forgiveness is a baby step in the right direction.

I'm saddened to read about how a lot of forced adoptions tagets find themselves with stigma again, living on the edges of society even as they are respectable doers who contribute so much.

As I was researching this I found something one Church did and does well.

It's found under Google: ICN Independent Catholic News
"Church Report exposes how politicians and media stigmatise poor people".

Little do a lot of Australians realise it takes but one trauma of a large extent for they to to be living on the edges, without, as others, ever having reason to be there.

We have to look at stigma in all it's forms with forced adoptions as I know there are many who are not living well or as they should, with immense intelligence and busy non destructive minds trying so hard to leave behind not only one, but now other stigmas.

It's a national shame these mums have any stigma associated with them now.
Let's get rid of the media and politician driven desire to kick people when their down, or having what is never static for many, a hard time of it.

[So many are being retrenched at fairly young ages.
In banking 50 is a kind of top.
In Advertising the only older persons are people like Singleton, as the number of retrenched at thirty and forty is phenomenal.]

With forced adoptions how can we stop the stigmas rolling onto the targets again and again, that's my big question here, and it's wonderful the Catholic Church are speaking up and out about just this in the online media as above.

Don't allow anyone to throw you off striving to develop your self awareness and growing to your fullest potential. Even whe politicians and the media are trying the hardest to do so.
Shame on them for this kind of conduct that will never draw votes or enhance their images whatsoever.

Even many rich people feel great empathy for the poor and disadvantaged and want to help them rise above all this, so many do deeds to elevate others, why not the media and politicians. Do the media and policians always need scapegoats?
This time they've been caught out.

Tori

The news article from Catholic news about politicians and the media stigmatising the poor, and this doesn't exclude quite a few of our forced adoptions targets, is dated 30/01/2013 at 8.52pm.
It's uptodate in more ways than one.

Best of good fortune in all areas of your lives forced adoption targets and also the poor who are being stigmatised at any time in Australia, a collectively rich nation that needs to look in the mirror at times.

This time the Church is to be commended, they do some wonderful work to trully make Australia a land of all are equal, whilst politicians and the media want to make a sham of this egalitarian and reasonable stand.

We need enhanced attention to unconscionabiltity from official regulators, and the media.

Tori

To women's especially mothers disadvantages there was sexism writhe when forced adoptions happened.

It's happening again in another form.
Maybe the infants aren't being wrenched from their mothers they are still being humiliated en masse.

The Age National Times Political News
"More than two million living in poverty" Oct. 15. 2012

An excerpt from this:

"Dr John Falzan, chief executove of St. Vincent de Paul's national council said it did "irreparable harm" when the poor were blamed for their plight."
"It is a matter of deep shame for a wealthy nation like ours [Australia] that our unemployment benefits, for example, have been kept deliberately low as a means of humiliating the very people they were originally designed to assist", he said.
We all can add all the other benefits and pensions are so low, as we watch the politicians gain their pay rises regularly. Very big rises at that.

The whole story is shameful, and I could talk here of the humiliation of the mothers who were forced to lose their infants because there was no support at all.
It took a Labor government to change this to allowing mothers a benefit, small as it was and is, to aloow women/mothers to subsist and nurture their infants.

The whole news is worth a read as it describes truth.
The truth is I am a birth mother who lives below the poverty line and try as I have I cannot gain paid employment so have to live as a poor person in various ways. It's very humiliating and I feel deeply depressed further at how this is all being enacted to "punish" those who are trying but cannot work.
My affluent family do as they did when I lost my first infant, treat me as the poor relative, and treat me very poorly.
This and the trauma of the forced adoptions has been enough to humiliate me for a lifetime.
However I am on the case and have the best connections, without which I would not be able to live and wonder if I'd have any spirit to survive whatsoever.

Shame on the policy makers for two sexist policies which tarnished and humilate/d again and again birth mothers.
Politicians are to desist blaming the poor for their plights. You too to go there if one single tragedy ocured which placed you in a situation in which you had no where else to go but into poverty. All the influence and connections in the world doesn't take the humiliation away, ever. You could also lose your jobs as so many of the birth mothers have due to no reasons of their own wrong.
Think you're exempt from poverty, being in power. I beg to differ.

There's a movie by Rodrigo Garcia titled "Things you can tell just by looking at her".
It's not for the faint hearted.
One of the main characters is a mother who lost her baby to adoption.
I thought those who have time to watch movies at their leisure might be interested.
It has some strong points in it about the anguish that lasts a lifetime for the birth mums.

Good luck to you all involved in this tragic Australian history

I want to raise how even the institute appear to leave out the fathers as having any reflection of the pregnancies that eventuated in forced adoptions.
These men, often irresponsible, allowed blame and shame on the women no less than the officials.
They often abandoned the women they devalued by using them as objects.
Why hasn't anybody spoken up about this.
It wasn't all about loving couples who lost to forced adoptions.
A lot of the mothers were left to own devices after they'd been thrown away by the men who satisfied their cruel objectifying of the birthing mothers.

I've known too many who fall into this category. Some men are unashamedly proud of their "feats of intimidation" and have no conscience whatsoever.
This world is in a mess when men say they are acting as men do.
Self restraint when in company of vulnerable and young impressionable is in order.

Lawrence

The apology had better be a good one otherwise it's pointless.
We've heard "Sorry" for other social atrocities and look at what has happened as consequence.
And, give these mums a decent go, so they don't have to live in public housing or anywhere were they may have to contend with further stigmas.
As a strong ally to several birth mums I'm all for real supports for these women, not simplistic sorry.
It's too easy to say and not really do what is necessary to mend these women's & their families lives

Thom

No matter what background the birth mothers came from it's clear inequalities were at play whilst these were going on.
Australia has a strong culture of denial of the present inequalities in Australia, most prominently the financial ones.

The birth mothers may have lost their babies to married couples who were not only of a different socio-economic group than their own (either rich or poor or in between) also of different cognitive styles etc. Often times the babies went to less financially fortunate married couples, even as the birth mothers were alone and with no assistance, their families were better off.

I was searching to find some clues to this inequality, which was so penalising of the birth mothers and found this:

Site: St. Vincents de Paul
National Council
Social policy Issues Paper 1
The reality of income inequality in Australia.
Principal Author: Mr. John Wicks
St. Vincent de Paul Society.

"Why do governments and some people seem to accept that, in order to work harder, the rich need more money, while the poor need more penalties."

Whilst we see how the churchs did a lot of damage with their discriminatory and harmful practices toward unmarried birth mothers we have to acknowledge they were possibly then as now looking at poverty and it's prevention or alleviation as are other encouraging organisations, such as Oxfam, make poverty history etc.

Inequality - the birth mothers were not "worthy" of keeping their baby to love and raise as their own.
The married couple, with income, some with less others with more usually, were acceptable to love and raise the birth mothers babies.

Whatever way we look at this, the disparity between the financially rich and the financially poor is growing, and has an impact on many facets of Australians citizens lives.
It definitely had implications on the birth mothers and their babies, to their penalties.

I believe we need to look at the inequality as it existed then, as well as how it is today. In broader contexts as well.

Reading about birth mothers today living in poverty is a great concern.
They are being penalised yet again, and for possibly suffering the trauma of forced adoptions not being able to find that suitable job to bring them out of poverty and living with a shame imposed for no wrong done.

I know of one birth mother from an affluent first family who is excluded from all their social events.
One excuse one relative gives her is she would feel embarassed as she does not have the means to buy gifts as do the others. How sick is that.
She has been isolated from her first family in many ways, mainly because of inequality, she has not the money the others have, nor the work to gain that enough money to "fit into that divisive first family".
It's not as if she doesn't do a lot of good, as she does, as her friends and I contest, it's this inequality.
Some contributions to society are not visible as are others. That doesn't diminish their value.

Inequality in Australia is a major issue.
Who is taking this seriously and bridging the giant gap between the rich and the poor. We are a wealthy nation and the idea of sharing resources should not be something only the higher income brackets do.

Such inequality in "fair" Australia is anything but "fair and reasonable".
It's very good to see those who are working on this, as this gives a lot of people at very least some hope.

Concerned citizen.

The Australia Institute have left a lot out of their "research" in to forced adoptions.

One thing worth knowing is The Australia Institute proposed [and had passed] mandatory filtering of internet access by internet service providers.
This says a lot about who they are regarding the internet information technology and what they think about people and privacy.

It's worth knowing just who has been doing the "research" that may well affect certain outcomes.
It's worth noting Clive Hamilton is no longer the Chair of The Australia Institute, an economist is.

Good luck to all the striving, trying to get better or healing [we hope] targets of forced adoptions.
A lot of people have been touched by forced adoptions by meeting some of you personally gaining true understandings we never had before.
We're backing your best interests and all the truths you've raised individually and collectively. You're not a generic or class or specific group of birth mothers, except for facts you were all forced to tragically lose your children.
You all have individual aspects to your personalities and lives which are "worthy" for sure.

Electronics Frontiers Australia justly opposed the Mandatory Internet filtering, to their credit, as did a lot of other reputable people. Their very real concerns were dismissed outright.

Wonder what organisations and individuals opposed the practices of forced adoptions at the times of these, and had their very real concerns dismissed?

What kind of power is it when that power subjects the people to such injustices. A dictatorship or tyrannical power is the answer. Do the powers that be really think the voters and those with conscionable clout will accept this and not take honourable stands against these kinds of impositions and injustices in Australia?

I tried to find news media in other places aside from here, news on forced adoptions.
There was plenty. I'm learning all the time and am grateful to those who are speaking up with spirit, not dampening all, with out.

Two news in New Matilda made me think, want to respond with verve.
No Emily Wolfinger from New Matilda, we who've suffered tragic losses of our babies are not all represented by Origins and their coordinator, never could be.
We understand you are related by birth to a mother who lost to forced adoptions and she belongs to Origins NSW. Good on her and you Emily have done too well in promoting Origins as if they are it with forced adoptions support.

Each of us have our own self chosen support connections not all of us can abide the philosophy of Origins.
They we're told (correct this if we've been misinformed Origins or Emily Wolfinger) are against all adoptions, no matter what circumstances.
How could anyone with thinking ability including acceptance of diversity, love humanity believe and condone this.

There are babies out there without parents and family and they have every right to be adopted by a loving couple, be they a gay or lesbian couple or heterosexual couple.
This is a contemporary world we live in, not the dark ages.

The media have to report facts about forced adoptions, not distortions of these facts and not promotion of whoever they feel is "worthy" of being promoted, and associated with the journalists relatives.

New Matilda have gone down in our estimation of good alternative news. A lot of academics have no more time for New Matilda anymore, as we know this.

Nic and family

We were all individually devalued with forced adoptions.
The relationships were ones of leaving the targets alone, and thereby without relationships except that of their babies. Babies they couldn't hold in their arms; thereby no relationships there.

Relational work, that invisible kind of work that so few seem to acknowledge let alone value is of utmost importance for forced adoptions targets.
It's one major key to getting out of depression or low self esteem and on the road to re-connecting or connecting with loved ones.

I've been really thinking about this a lot of late as I've refused one sunny invitation after another too focused on forced adoptions to be able to enjoy life and make this one facet of who I am, not all the facets of my sense of self, just that one facet only as traumatic and painful as it has been and is.

Someone wrote about work that isn't visible, and this is in part that work that is to do with interpersonal relationships. These take hard work and a lot of effort to sustain.
Too little emphasis is ever on these aspects of any work.

As a forced adoption target, loving companion, friend and mother I have a lot I've been putting aside doing things which I thought were more worthwhile because doing things that are visible appear to be more important to so many.
I'm reevaluating all this.

Without the structure and support of relational work there is very little work, of any kind, anywhere.
We are not meant to be standing alone in forced adoptions or in any circumstances past or present.

We were denied relational work with forced adoptions, how about giving it a lot of thought so you never again feel so isolated as in that tragic past.

This doesn't mean going toward others who are equally depressed, as that may be counter to your healing. In time, yes, do this to help others as you know all about what it feels like. Not until the sad birds have gone away I suggest, and with the aid of good therapy and good friends and family. They may not be the family you came from judging from what I've read in some of the comments on Indy. They may be for some.

Not too much work has any value without the invisible work of relational work.
You're valuable given what you've been through and someohow come out alive with or without realtional work, so discernment is very good.

Don't buy into you have to be perfect and do non stop to prove your wealth, at the cost of relationships.
You were denied a major relationship, birth mothers, now give these your best shots, you deserve a real life now.

I've been reading a lot of this.
One thing I think needs some clarification.
Any birth mothers who are constantly doing internships or volunteer work because they think they aren't worthy of paid work should stop and think.
I am seeing some amazing people doing all sorts of internships and these are forced adoptions targets, that lead nowhere.
We have an epidemic of exploitation whereby employers are laughing their way to profits whilst their interns and/or volunteers (usually with low self esteem because of poorly placed blame and shame) are losing out every time.
It's time for the volunteers and interns to re-think just how valuable their time is.
Decision making may be hard for forced adoption targets, due to that ominous not self made "decision", just don't let it keep happening.
Unpaid labour is a joke now in Australia.
We know women already do unpaid labour in their homes and no one much recognises this nor ever has.
We don't have to see all these women doing unpaid labour that really should be paid positions of work.

I know one reason why the economy is so divided between the have a lots and the have nots, it's just this, endless unpaid work done by kind, compassionate women who haven't yet learned they are valuable and they surely are and have every right to live a decent lifestyle not on the fringes or with less than so many.
Money isn't everything, sure enough it is needed when you work, and who amongst us doesn't in whatever way we can.
The rich corporate charities churchs and other corporations have to start paying their interns and volunteers.
That way the tax man also wins.
It's rediculous how many birth mums I know working like hell and getting no payment for their labours.
The devaluing started a long time ago. We have to consider this.
The mothers are a valuable part of our society, and deserve paid work not never ending volunteer or internships.
The money corporations grasp whilst their interns and volunteers go without is astounding and no one's talking about this.
Jobs are there if we get rid of so many (too many volunteer and intern unpaid jobs.) Whose thinking this through with reason.
The particular birth mums I know who are working volunteer internships are being abused yet again. Same exploitations as forced adoptions different situations.

Hope the apology is authentic it's certainly long overdue.
John McG.

My friends and I are constantly talking about going stir crazy at times yet choosing to care with love and desire for best for our kids. Always at home with our younger children and being denied paid work because it would cost us more to have this.

We found this it's older yet wise and appropriate to our and other women's plights.

Green Left Weekly
"And ain't i a woman?" : "Invisible Work".
Wednesday August 7th 1991, 10,00am

We work very hard and I have no doubts the birth mothers whether they had children after their tragic loss or not work hard also.
Especially though those who did later have another child/ren and have to work and that work is not visible as in child rearing and household duties.
Women are treated as though they're home work is not work at all, when it certainly is.

Look at what many men pay women to do when they have no wives or children, including ironing their shirts, cleaning, on and on it goes.

Many of us do not buy into the state looking after our kids, we prefer to give them our caring right from word go and until we individually feel they are secure enough to be out there in others care as well as our own.

I believe strongly there needs to be education about women's unpaid or invisible work as well as recognition of this. It should be considered work that deserves pay.
Just because work isn't paid doesn't mean it isn't part of a large bulk of work that is weaving the fabric of our society in Australia together, and all the better if it were given credit.
It's time to do this.
We are looking after the foundations of our present and future society after all.

It's not true most women are tending to work outside home, as we can show from being a group of women who come together to talk about our contributions and share ideas about how to get rid of the ignorance regarding what is and what isn't work.
Because it's given with love to family does that mean it's not to be visible and recognised. It takes great emotional and physical eforts.

For those mums who lost tragically their own kin I have great concerns as they too need recognition for being the parent who conceived and birthed their babies, and were thereafter abused unashamedly. They have the physical and enotional proof of all their babies births no adopter can show. It affects the women's body for life, and there's no complaints here just facts.
How could dorced adopyions victims find the courage to feel good about themselves when society told them wrongly they were so bad.
That's more than brutalising women and girls.
It's way out of line and needs to be corrected with more than an apology.

Sonia

I think forced adoptions targets should be encouraged to do paid work not by coercion or force of any kind.

I understand some corporations ask their employees to give their expertise for short times with volunteering their services. This is good as it enriches work places that have little funds and need that expertise. It's sad when they have ample funds.

As for the forced adoptions targets, haven't they lost a lot of time and money trying to sort all this out. They shouldn't be on the volunteer or interhship work train that leads to no futher work more often than not.

I've worked for over ten years as a volunteer and gained no respect nor ended up in paid work as a forced adoption target. I think I must have done this, and still occasionally do, to feel worthy, when I already am. I'm certainly not at retirement age or stage.
It's been humiliating often times as the paid workers bark out orders to me when I am giving graciiously for no financial return. They seem to think they have the right to bark these orders out when I can and do do hard work without need for their intolerable directives. I know what I'm doing. There's this attitude of distorted pecking order in volunteer work that's also very demeaning.
There's that lack of appreciation I've no real idea why I bothered to give my time so freely to this workplace where they never gave me credit for anything, and the hours I put in were huge. I can only think very low self esteem, as if I were what I was told I was when I was an unmarried pregnant teenager.

Some of these targets from the earliest years of forced adoptions would be retired, and we know it's not the wealthy who do volunteer work, its the retired or those with little, or who want to be part of working teams.
Let them have paid work, they already did enough unpaid labour when they were forced to surrender their babies, and as I've said afterwards too.

I too think many internships and volunteer work leads no where to paid work, even when the employers say it will.
Shame on them for doing this.
I also think volunteer work has become so writhe as to take away from paid jobs in the workforce, and this shouldn't be. We need all the paid jobs we can find, they just aren't out there no matter what experience and qualifications you have.
We need work that is paid because women as a rule are often caregivers with children and then with their elderly parents. When does this all start to show how governments are saving huge moneys at the expense of exploiting again the natural mums, and some dads too.

I'm appalled at the penalties people get when they do paid work and are on government benefits. There's a disincentive to work when that work pay will be lost if and when anybody does the hard yakka to try and do the right things by the ecopnomic rationalists who don't understand non visible work at all. Also the amount they can earn is so small what help does this give for eventual retirement and what do the meagre amounts do for super for these mums. Do they want us all to die early, that would be a train we've met at Auschwitz again.
We're not thinking clearly if we ask people to work for so little and then penalise them by taking a lot of it back, is it 50%? I think so.
Something wrong with this and the constant demands on those with so little income to do volunteer work which is unpaid.
all of us have basics to buy let alone any time to think about luxuries, let the mothers have choices this time round, real work choices that don't disadvantage them.
Let the Louis Voutton ladies do some volunteer work for a change, that would be the day hey.
And no I'm not status envy, and hate Louis Vouttons everywhere you look. They aren't rare at all neither are their owners. Give me original one offs anyday, rather than mass produced even when I have to make them myself.

End this crazy using those who appear to or just plain don't have enough assertion to say no to unpaid work and have so little to negotiate with in terms of money and time.
Thankyou

I know a lot of women who whether because of low self esteem of plain genuine care for their fellow man who do volunteer work hoping it will evntuate in paid employment. It hasn't for any of them.
I've watched them as they tackle some pretty tricky environments to work as volunteers and get no thank yous.
I don't think it's because they have self esteem as some I know who do this have anything but.
There's that always wanting free staff from so many that bugs me and disadvantages these mothers.
Everyone is entitled to paid work and the no. of volunteer jobs has to be taken of the Employment Services data base so the clients they get paid to assist get real work, not volunteer or internships that lead to no mans land and no pay packets.
Forced adoptions targets are valuable, as they have more abilities than disabilities.
Good on all who've raised the atrocious volunteer work scandals. They keep using the ones who need an extra financial lift up every time.
Use the "Louis Vouttons" good idea.

Brett H,

I think it's just great how so many are giving their extra time to causes they feel very passionate or compassionate about. A lot of people do this for the right reasons and for justice and humanity purposes.
Otherwise sites like these wouldn't operate probably.

GetUp.org have a new venture which no doubt asks people for their extra time, and it so good.

There's that line that can't be crossed whereby anyone shouldn't be forced or coerced to do volunteer work of which they have no real interest or passion, and which may never go anywhere as the commenters say, too true.

Choices weren't available for the forced adoptions targets before, they should be available today.
No two ways about this.
The poor woman who worked ten years and got no appreciation, I would have walked out long ago, but as she said I think, her low self esteem kept her on the gravy train to nowhere probably disrespet and definitely took advantage of her. Good therapy would help immensely there
No one should go that way with volunteer work.

Income from paid jobs is essential yet where are the jobs, so that's another reason numbers turn to volunteer to feel useful. It should be rewarded and appreciated, with some remuneration ultimately.

We all have a need to feel we belong, are connected with others and I think some in their plights turn to volunteer work for this. Trouble is what's the point of being connected to or feeling belonging in any group where they don't show you basic human respect.
Get out of those ones and go to where your passion takes you. The money will follow.

That's drawing the line between exploitative and there's a lot of it internships and volunteer work and the kind that enriches one's lives.
The people doing that work have to have the choice whether they want to do it or not, no one should coerce or bully another into volunteer work especially the kind that takes up on'es time minimally or endlessly and gains no prospects of purpose or appreciation for those involved.

I think choice is especially important for people affected by forced adoptions, given their histories of being used up.

I like so many question the morality of the governments, churchs and corporations that put birth mothers and their babies , anyone actually, in situations that destabilized their mental health and punished them. Or does this in this era.
This doesn't just apply to forced adoptions, here it does.

We have asked some big questions and this here is the question that needs answering.
Will an apology stop the birth mothers having flashbacks from times ago that never let them be? Anguish that doesn;t give up even as they carry on regardless with their care and concern for everyone.
Will the apology alleviate further actions from governments, churchs and corporations from doing things they know will ultimately return to society citizens who are harmed and need help, when health services are at an all time ebb.

We don't want the coalition in power so Health services would be a start to gaining a stay in power. Otherwise we need a third party, what a good idea that is, the Greens.

Give the birth mothers some credit and don't patronise them with some feeble sorry that means nothing compared to what they've been through, and even if they're smiling, what is behind those smiles. This whole situation sickens me.
How could it have happened? How could a lot that's going on right now be happening?
The government and churchs need to change.
Aggressors need to admit their acts and this includes the Salvation Army.
They haven't apologised whilst Benevolent Society and a few States have.
Are they unable to admit their aggressive acts and only wanting to be acknowledged for their "kindly" ones. They can't hide anymore.

Is it their Gods will they're in Nauru right now, being guards are they.
Shame.

Jason

My forced adoption was the initial product of intimidatory sex. I was a child even though I was intelligent and creative I had no knowledge of the opposite sex.
That loss has never been resolved and I'm unsure if it ever can be.
The second man I met who again in his own way intimidated me yet in a less aggressive way became the father of my second child.
I slept with him for over a year without there being any affection or sexuality. At least he tolerated that, even though I'm unsure if I loved him as his "habit's with drugs were not my own. I know I liked that he was different to the man who raped me at 15 years of age.
This relationship didn't last yet this man kept coming back to me time and again for money from my work in a shop to feed him, and even at one point brought a bed along with him to come and stay with my second child and I.
I didn't allow it.
I became a sole parent and did very well with a lot of help from people who just seemed to be there for me and my baby and then growing child, and I worked and supported us admirably even though humbly in a very diverse and villagy suburb if Sydney.
When my second child was adolescent her natural father decided he wanted revenge for my not ever letting him live with us, our child and I. I always gave him custody that wasn't enough it appeared. He never gave me maintenance of any kind. I was financially and emotionally both mother and father.
He exacted that revenge not only on me also on my child. She was sent to a "special" school even as she was dux of the school Id sent her too. A man friend saved the day eventually, however, without his help I have no idea what would have become of my daughter. Her father is a known narcissist.
I'm writing this to show how one pattern started so long ago can repeat and cause damage which is aside from that of the forced adoptions traumas which forever leave their trace.
The father of my second child exacted his revenge by lying about my occupation and by doing this via a government department. They believed he and his ex-prostitute partner and gave those two custody for a short time, until I was helped professionally.
My second child's father did this with an ex-prostitute who was his partner for many years, and who was also into illicit drugs. She was afterwards a secretary for a law firm, how about that. What a world we live in.
My child and I were not in that world yet circumstances draw the shame and blame onto us. That shame and blame that came with being an unmarried mother the first time, and by terrible means, came again later when the second childs dad did his terrible deeds.
The victimisation doesn't or didn't stop with the forced adoption.
It continued with this man, my child's father whom I could not be with because of his drug habits, and my belief a child may have only one parent who is without that problem and be better off than with one who was always using me for his cover, and my child as well. I did care for him and gave a lot but nothing stopped his abuse.
Forced adoptions has many effects and these begin with a pattern of being vulnerable and unassertive and allowing the wrong men to invite you anywhere.
Today I am discerning. Yesterday is another story.
I wonder how many natural mothers had to put up with partners or manfriends who used them as objects for their own self gratification, selfish motives and self esteem boosters, like handbags.
The anguish I feel about forced adoptions goes right to the heart of one choice not made, to lose ny first born, and one made without understanding, that of being with the second man, father of my second child.
With all the relationships we have in our lifetimes I wish there were educations for girls, adolescents and women on how to choose and be chosen by decent, civil men who are sensitive and caring. Who don't want to take advantage of a women's dignity and devalue her.
Where's that eduaction come from? Our own fathers perhaps.
I'd love it if anyone knew anything about this.
I would have made a submission about my experience of forced adoptions however the details of that are so horrific even beyond what I've read in all the ones I have read. It was one very foolish girl who really thought everyone was decent in this world and didn't want to hurt or bully others. I've learnt now too well there's a lot of people who do want to bully, hurt and even destroy people and my mind still can't get around this. I'm flawed yet never want to hurt, something wrong with me then?
Why also, do we make heroes out of people who use dutch courage as in use hard drugs and "get there"?
What example does this give our young ones, all, of what is o.k. for them to try and what is not?
If only forced adoptions were all about just the ptsd of that trauma, it ends up being accumulative, until you see a therapist, or in my case that's how it is.
Don't misunderstand, I understand people who use hard drugs have issues and are struggling with a lot.
It's just that they can also be very manipulatie, vindictive amd malicious as I learnt. I'm sure not all of them?
Forced adoptions is more than complex and there are many stories untold beside mine.
I came from privelege and ended up poor yet not in many ways.
It's important people understand forced adoptions were not about people being able to make choices.
It's important people understand relationships are often not about people making conscious choices, especially if they've been burned severely beyond the pale the first time.

The happy news is I have a caring man in my life now, and a wonderful second child who is doing really well.
Forced adoptions is still affecting a lot of my life and I donlt go a night without waking to some nightmare or strange dream for whatever reason, probably the forced adoption.
Ultimately I believe the vengeful, malicious and vindictive get caught out by other vengeful malicious and vindictive and end up losing out on relationships and other things that matter.
Thanks

I think the underlying purpose of what I just wrote was not that I judge others for struggling, never.

It was in a nutshell for heavens sake powers that be don't penalise and punish unmarried sinle mothers today.
It's very hard being two parents in one yet harder for the child if the father is abusive, I believe.

Each single mother has their own reasons for becoming a sole parent and most are very valid, even if some may think "Why didn't she try and rehabilitate the father of her second child?"
That would have been an impossible ask in my case, he was also a womaniser, his habits remained for a long, long time and may still be the same.

Leave the unmarried mothers today to find their way without the penalising, punishing. cruel beyond cruel actions you impose on them, It hurts me to know of these, and hurts them so very much more so. Give them a hand up not down. Put yourself in their shoes.

Why should any partner or wife "rehabilitate" their male other.
He was a skank and a user who would have dragged you and your child down where he was.
If you went through a forced adoption isn't that enough for you to have some compassion for yourself and you second child as well as your first.
I bet it took a lot to get to being happy after such a lot of using and abusing by your male "friends". Even though that haooiness comes and goes and isn't devoid of depression.
This is digusting.
There's a lot of terrible stories I hear about women being treated not dissimilar to you and this shows that something is stopping women rightly judging the men.
We do have to judge to be discerning, use our better judgement.

Skanks don't deserve gentle caring souls like yours.
Glad you found the support you need and hope you find resolution with the forced adoption.
Seems like it's affected a lot of your life and it shouldn't have. You are worthy, skanks like those two dads are not. I'm noticing a lot of women choosing below their intelligence and wondering why. Something in our society diminshes the value of women, economics plays a big part as does the glossy and otherwise media.
There is still not equality with the genders, all of them.

Too right leave the sole mothers and their kids out of the bully impositions and support them as much as possible.

Abi(gail)

What I think about the father of that second child to a forced adoption victim is he was priming her to be a prostitute. That’s low life at its lowest.
Go for the vulnerable. Trouble is these low life do. Unsuccessfully a lot of the time, they once tried it on me when I was ready to leave the world or felt that way.
I'm a forced adoption victim who knows I bully myself up about it all.
I was also intimidated to have first sex, does it matter, I loved the baby inside me and wanted to raise her. It wasn't going to be because the social worker was insistent I sign something I didn't understand and was really distraught about.
The man ran, but he wasn't as pimpish as the ones I’m reading about here.
There's some real low life out there who prey on the nice girls, the people pleasers and that's another problem with single parents today being treated badly by governments and all the rest.
Too right we need to support them with their babies, everyone does, not the few.
We should have supported all the forced adoptions victims and their babies when this went on.

Beth

I was sitting in the lounge after school when the mother of the father of my lost child came to visit my parents.
She stood there and said with all her might "Your daughter is a whore, my son did nothing to her".
I sat there stunned and in shock and lost my voice.
My parents, I can't recall how they responded, except I know the follow on.
It wasn't nice and it was the beginning of a shame and guilt which would eat away at me for a very long time.
I had only one sexual experience at that time, and it was due to that mother's son's intimidation.
The reason I write this today is forced adoptions is so very deeply disturbing, and how people reacted when a teenager got pregnant was/is frightening. It was for me.
That image has remained and will never go away.
One of many that seem to creep into my mind when I least need them to.
I understand logically no mother would come along and say it unless her son was guilty, yet that doesn't erase the feelings I still feel about that one time which has never gone away. I didn't understand then the reason a mother would name me a "whore".
I was from that moment on a "whore" to many.
The truth is I was anything but a whore, yet my voice wasn't available, I wasn't strong enough to fight off that humiliation and shame.
The mother was quite unstable, poor, and a single mother; I was so very kind to her and treated her with utmost kindness and respect. She often talked about a movie she liked called "Gaslight" and to this day I don't want to know what it's about. She'd say to me "I'm crazy" too often, this was prior to her first and only visit to my family's home to meet with my parents briefly and sharp as a knife.
When this happened, her announcement of my "status" is it, something within me dissolved and I couldn't cry, I couldn't scream, I could only sit there almost curled in a foetal position, totally wiped out by what had just been said.
There's so much to forced adoptions.
So many facets.
So many individual stories, and each so tragically cruel.
We have to look after our teenagers and support them as parents and as people even if we aren't parents.
I felt pity for this woman; I know that's why I gave her kindness, time of day, and listened to her when she ranted about whatever; and learnt so very disturbingly how pity is a lost emotion with many.
Pity is certainly akin to compassion yet it's different.
A mother I really cared about was protecting her son.
My father was going to have him up for carnal knowledge yet that mother had no idea of this, and my father would not follow through. He was in a rage.
It's very distressing all the angles of forced adoptions.
Shaming and blaming is not what I'm here to do.
I need to cathart something that keeps coming into my mind as the apology is approaching.
Who should really be apologising?
There were so many ready to label me, and they certainly did. Every forced adoptions target was labelled thus, that's the cruelest of all this. Tarnished, out in the badlands you go.
It would change me from a child to an adult in a very small amount of time. A lost innocence in more ways than one.
It would take away any sexuality I felt whenever I felt this, and I can't remember feeling it in time of the intimidation nor in the years that followed that "announcement".
I'm very big on dignity to this day, and know exactly what humiliation means on the deepest darkest level.
The trouble with early humiliations is they have to be aired with a therapist, as I did years after the facts of this. People should also know about the tragic effects of this kind of conduct. Transferring guilt and shame that doesn't belong is not only scapegoating it's darkest humiliation that leaves a lasting imprint.
Words, humiliation and labels do hurt.
Let's become a more civil society today.
I can't live in anything less. Who that feels and has a mind of their own can?

Girls and women need to help each other rather than be in ego competition with each other.

Nothing will change until this does.

Women do their darndest to put a tall poppy down, or some woman wiser or prettier: no matter what form, down.

Men do that too, differently. Men argue, fight and then make up.

Women are a different species.

Forced adoptions showed how women from all diverse political platforms came to the same conclusions.

Would that have hapopened if it were all men?

Get friends with women you women and stop alientating them because of whatever reason, that're one way to equality in one sense, which leads to others.

Don't give Julia a hard time because she's a woman and speak your mind up when as a woman she steps over any lines of decency and humanity.

We can't have another conservative government in power as we did when forced adoptions happened.

Bear in mind we all have an animus and an anima, and therefore some are more this or that.

All the best to the targets, you're not in range of fireline now.

Be who you are and grow with pizzazz.

I think forced adoptions senate inquiry showed us what a lot can be gained by women seeing the bigger picture.
I've my doubts whether Julia Gillard listens to anybopdy except herseld.
She can be both mean to men as well as women.
One commendation she's giving the national apology.
That's a feather in her cap.
Women and men in politics don;t trust each other as they are in that kind of jobs.
Women outside politics maybe able to support and compliment each other agreed.

I've noticed the targets of forced adoptions I've spoken with have told me all their female friends their peers and male friends disowned them when they went to the hospitals.
One tells me it's either that the Salvos didn't allow visitors or they just didn't show.
So in times of crises I think every girl or women needs the support and kindness of fellow girls and women for sure.

Rhonda

Agape as I know it is love of fellow man.
I've found another definition which fits better with forced adoptions and other social injustices.

Thomas Jay Cord defines Agape as an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being.

Wishing all in forced adoptions and all situations where ones have been or are persecuted or abused without mercy, well-being.

Healing can happen
In hope

I've just read the article posted on Indy entitled
'Cuts to single parent payments could violate internartional laws' 'The Federal Government have been questioned by the United Nations'.

I trully believe there is a link between forced adoptions and what is being done with the penalising cuts to single parent payments.

I also believe too many have a sad misconception about why mothers arrive sole in their role as mothers.
Many fathers are not there for them and not because the mothers don't want them there.
The news media and other factors have disseminated this wrong assumption they want to go it alone with their babies, and Gough gave them the means to do so.
Gough did show humanity true enough, human decency actually.
Not true the majority of girls or women want to stand alone with babes in arns.

Forced adoptions happened for many reasons not least because the mothers were coerced to sign away their babies.
They too were penalised for different reasons yet also the same reasons.
Why the regression so far back in time?
What's going on here?
Very good to see the UN asking questions.
Senators in Australia could be asking a lot too.

I've been in a meeting with a mum who lost her first child to forced adoptions.
Today she received a letter from NSW Dept of Family and Community Services which outlines how they are investigating her.
She's done nothing wrong, and continues to be a baluable role model in society, albeit with some war wounds from this Inquiry and the prior tragedy she suffered.
It's time Government bureaucrats backed off these mothers and started looking at who is doing wrong, not who is doing right.
It's a generic letter we've been discussing yet it has my clients name on it, shame on the department for assuming the worst, as they always do, about someone they owe a lot to for what she's contributed and contributing to Family and Human Services in very discreet and humane ways, in regards to the intolerable letter in very right, just ways.
NSW government back off your bullying the birth mothers, it's being recorded, will be taken further if it persists.
Allow these women healing space rather than guilt mongering tactics that serve no purpose.
Go after the people who are abusing, not doing the right things. Government interferes on the lives of people in the most distasteful ways when it assumes all are wrong, as they did with forced adoptions and the birth mothers then.
It's happening again in other ways.
This woman is a loving mother and goes out with a reputable barrister as companionship and intellectual rapport.
She is doing the hard yards with doctors to resolve her experiences of forced adoptions. A lot of hard invisible work.
Do NSW Government need to make another apology about forced adoptions as they yet again target the innocent ones?

Neville