Category: Media Release

Response to the Guardian article published today 7th August 2022:  “My birth* mother was not allowed to name her baby. But the name she gave me in her heart is real”.

While it’s both welcome and surprising to see an adopted person speaking about the reality of adoption actually being published in the national media – and this article perfectly captures the pain of disconnection – adoption is nowhere near as ‘fixed’ as the article implies.

Integrated birth certificates make no difference to the effect of adoption legislation. Human and civil rights remain breached. Identities remain disintegrated.

Fact Check 1. “This document gives me the choice of using either the name from my first birth certificate, or the second one – whichever I prefer.”

Incorrect – Integrated birth certificates do not allow someone to use their real name instead of the adopted name. The adopted name is the legal name, and if they use their real name as if it was their legal name then they are breaking the law.

Fact Check 2. “Legislation once erased the original names and connections of forcibly adopted children**. But even with this now addressed, family remains complicated.”

Incorrect –

(1) Adoption legislation STILL erases the CONNECTIONS of ALL adopted children-then-adults and any future generations. Integrated birth certificates do nothing to address this.

and (2) Adoption legislation STILL erases the ORIGINAL NAMES of ALL adopted children-then-adults and any future generations.  Even if an adopted person does not have their real name and ancestry withheld from them, it is still cancelled, declared invalid, not legal. Nothing has changed there.***

The integrated birth certificate is reliant on whatever information has already been RELEASED or is deemed available to the adoptee anyway.

Despite the proclamations and promises of the apologies 10 years ago, there has been no affirmative action that acknowledges our situation, and adoptees still have to jump through expensive and tortuous hoops to get their father’s names accepted on records, let alone their mother’s correct names, or even their own names – as the writer of the article described.

But even having these names written on an “integrated” birth certificate does nothing to restore the severed connections, or the rights of adoptees that have been removed by adoption legislation. It does nothing for the adopted people who want to use a true birth certificate as is the right of most others in our society.

“Integrated” birth certificates are a whitewash and a smokescreen – an attempt to obscure the fact that adoption is fundamentally flawed from the replacement identity up, and that the only way to truly fix adoption is to get rid of it all together.

– And why should a government certificate take what appears to be well over 9 MONTHS to be provided after being applied for? From an original application made in 2021? Adopted people are STILL suffering because their information is treated as exempt from the usual Privacy and Freedom of Information provisions others in society take for granted.

– The fact that Adoption Acts still contain a clause that would mean the author could be prosecuted because of this very article (with up to 12 months imprisonment and/or fine in NSW) for potentially identifying a “party” to adoption, show that there has been no real examination of how adoption law truly affects those who are forced to live subject to it.

* mother.
** over 95% of adoptees in Australia are adults. Please stop speaking of us as ‘adopted children’ and representing us as infants. 
*** There are still only two jurisdictions in Australia where the adopted person has an automatic right at 18 to find out what their identity and ancestry was! (if they have been advised they are adopted! -There is no requirement in adoption legislation to advise the adoptee of their status!) AND even if they know they are adopted, no minor adoptees in Australia have the automatic right to their name, history, ancestry or any identity details while they are growing up – despite this being recognised as crucial to identity formation, and a recognised right of minors in foster care.

Sharyn White

Adopted People – Invisible Australians.

Response by Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc. to the Government Response to the Recommendations of the Inquiry into Historical Forced Adoption in Victoria.

We congratulate the mothers who have fought long and hard for recognition of their trauma and the illegal acts to which they were subjected when their babies (now adults) were forcibly removed.

However, we are gravely concerned that adopted people have been left out yet again in this government response.

We are an aging population in need of support and recognition.

Throughout the Government response, we are referred to as “adopted children”. We are adults who were severed from our mothers, fathers, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers and the right to our familial, social and cultural identities, along with our vital medical histories. Our children and grandchildren are also affected by these intergenerational losses.

Adopted people are over-represented in suicide, suicide attempts, alcoholism, substance abuse, homelessness, and incarceration, yet the funding of mental health services for victim-survivors does not appear to have been prioritised, and funding amounts are not anywhere near adequate, nor are they even comparable to support for other vulnerable groups.

Recommendation 22 was that the government ‘consider establishing a redress scheme for people who were forcibly adopted, especially those who were placed in institutions or adopted into unsuitable families.’ This is a significant and harmful division of the adoptee community – something that was carefully avoided in the consideration of redress for mothers.

Throughout the report there was recognition of the grief, trauma, and loss experienced by adopted people – not just from the further abuse experienced by many, but from the maternal separation and adoption itself. To consider redress only to some further invalidates adoptees, and also contradicts the findings of the inquiry.

At the very least, an inquiry into adoption itself could have been supported. But the government response at Recommendation 15 is very confusing. It refers to research, not an inquiry. While there is a glaring data gap when it comes to research on adopted people, ‘research’ was the subject of Recommendation 14. So the recommendation that there be an inquiry for adopted people has, effectively, not been responded to at all.

While we congratulate the Victorian government on their recognition of the suffering of mothers, this is not the whole picture. Adopted people remain invisible.

Contact information:
For further information, please contact Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc at [email protected] and for phone contacts for media.

President of Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc., Peter Capomolla Moore, says: “ARA welcomes many of the 56 recommendations of the Victorian Inquiry into responses to historical forced adoption in Victoria and we thank the Committee and Secretariat for the empathetic and inclusive way this Inquiry was conducted.”

“We congratulate the mothers who have fought long and hard for recognition of their trauma and the illegal acts they were subjected to when their children (now adults) were forcibly removed.”

“We are pleased to see that the words of the late William Hammersley-Ellis, co-founder of Adoptee Rights Australia, whose last wish was to be able to die as the person he was when he was born, can be heard loud and clear in the recommendation to introduce No-fee, No-fault discharges (Recommendation 16).”

“But we are gravely concerned that adopted people have been left out of the redress scheme recommendations.”

“While Recommendation 18 wholeheartedly endorses a redress scheme for mothers ‘without delay’ (made up of a monetary payment, counselling, and psychological support) that specifically does not differentiate between mothers, Recommendation 22 for adoptees is that the government ‘consider establishing a redress scheme for people who were forcibly adopted, especially those who were placed in institutions or adopted into unsuitable families.’ ”

“This amounts to an invalidation of one group of forcibly removed adoptees, which contributes to further damage in an already extremely vulnerable community.”

“The fact that such high numbers of adoptees were physically and sexually abused in adoptive placements absolutely needs to be recognised. But the lack of recognition of the suffering of all who were forcibly removed and adopted is at odds with the content of the report.”

“Throughout the report there is recognition of the grief, trauma, and loss of the adopted person – not just from the further abuse experienced by many, but from the maternal separation and adoption itself.”

“And if redress is to be made for mothers for having their babies forcibly removed, then how can it not be made inclusively for those babies (now adults) who illegally lost their mothers, fathers, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers and their rights to their family histories & cultures along with vital medical histories?”

“Recommendation 22 is also at odds with the motion passed in the Federal Senate on the 18th March 2021 to mark the 8th anniversary of the National Apology for Forced Adoptions, which included the commitment to hear the voices of those who were forcibly removed, and to ensure that all of those affected get the help they need.”

“We appreciate that the Committee listened to ARA’s calls for an inquiry into the practice of adoption itself. But that is a separate matter to redress for acknowledged past illegal acts of removal.”

“We are an aging population in need of the support and recognition that comes with redress before it is too late.”

Contact information:

For further information, contact Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc at [email protected]

National Peak Body for adoptees, Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc. does not support the current push towards increasing adoptions by some state governments and wealthy, self-interested lobby groups. Instead, ARA Inc. is calling for an inquiry into the controversial practice of adoption itself – its legislation, policy and practices, and its effect on the human rights, best interests and whole of life and intergenerational outcomes of adopted people and their descendants.

Inquiries like the Inquiry into the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices (2012) exposed the treatment of mothers who were forced to relinquish their children at or near birth for potential adoption. Many issues of concern were raised about adoption itself during those inquiries and since, but there has never been a comprehensive examination of adoption or the experiences and outcomes of adoptees.

President of ARA Inc., Peter Capomolla Moore says: “As an adoptee, I am not related to my grandparents, siblings, aunts,  uncles, and cousins.”

“We are told that adoption has changed, but there are so many examples of how it hasn’t:

•    erasure and replacement of identity – adoptees have two birth certificates,

•    legal severance from kin, culture and ancestry,

•    no mandated welfare checks once the adoption is finalised – care is privatised, (many adoptees have spoken out about the abuse they received at the hands of the people who adopted them, but were excluded from the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse),

•    being at the mercy of retrospective Adoption Act changes,

•    the prohibitive access to information and having no rights under Freedom of Information Acts,

•    contact or information restrictions making it an offence to find or contact family, which are more enduring, easier to get, and stronger than most restraining orders…

…and these are just some of the realities that adoptees – past and present – live with.”

“It’s common knowledge within adoptee communities, and indicated by the very few studies that exist, that adopted people are at significantly higher risk of suicide and attempted suicide, mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness and imprisonment.”

“Why are some state governments dispensing with their duty of care for vulnerable children by supporting a practice that places children into private care with no requirement to follow up their welfare and outcomes in the short or longer term?”

Vice President of ARA Inc., Dr Catherine Lynch JD says it’s important to recognise that adoption is an issue for all Australians:

“The complexity in adoption practice and policy for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community is recognised in legislation and policy as it should be, but given that Australia is a diverse multicultural country, it is time that we acknowledge that all children have powerful familial links to their mothers, kin, identity and culture.”

Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc’s position is that to continue adoption, let alone increase it, without paying heed to the calls for a comprehensive inquiry into adoption by those who are living it, is not only short-sighted, but a reckless act which will have long-term and profound negative repercussions.

End

Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc is established by adopted persons to give a national voice to their lived experience of adoption in Australia, and to advocate for reform in adoption legislation, policy and services in all Australian jurisdictions, so that the human rights and wellbeing of adopted persons are restored, protected and promoted.

Read more about Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc via https://adopteerightsaustralia.org.au/

Contact information:

For further information, contact Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc at [email protected]

Published Date:

Wednesday, 24 June 2020