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The Catholic Church in Australia has issued a national apology over past adoption practices that have been described as a “national disgrace”. The apology was prompted by an ABC investigation into claims of abuse and trauma in Newcastle. It is believed at least 150,000 Australian women had their babies taken against their will by some churches and adoption agencies between …
The revelation is contained in a business plan prepared by principal social worker in the South Lee region, Pat O’Dwyer, in 2011 in preparation for the HSE’s takeover of about 15,500 adoption files from the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Order which ran the Bessborough, Sean Ross Abbey, and Castlepollard Mother and Baby Homes. Mr O’Dwyer …
Up until 1970, the UK regularly shipped thousands of orphans and illegitimate children abroad to a life of virtual slave labour and, often, abuse. Giulia Rhodes meets two victims of a policy that robbed them of a childhood and a family Sunday evenings were the highlight of the week when Tony Costa was a child. Then, he and the other …
Last year German based adoption-activist Arun Dohle was handed a file of a young Australian woman who wanted to find her birth family in India. Years of searching had proved fruitless up until then. Mr Dohle sent the brief to his Indian colleague Anjali Pawar. With scant details, just the name of the village and the birth date, Ms Pawar …
The last time Fatima saw her two year-old daughter Zabeen in the flesh was in 1998 when she was playing with her four year-old brother Hussain outside a tea shop near their house in Washermanpet in Chennai. Sixteen years down the line, Zabeen now lives over 7000 kilometres away in Australia under a different name with her Australian adoptive parents. …