Adoption …

• is complex and traumatic

• has intergenerational impacts

• was a failed experiment.

Forced adoptions in Aotearoa New Zealand…

There has been no apology for the wrongs of past adoption practices in New Zealand despite numerous calls to do so.  The rhetoric of successive governments has been ‘…… there were no forced adoptions in New Zealand’.

An apology will demonstrate an understanding that adoption was a failed experiment, and that it has complex, traumatic and inter-generational impacts.

It will recognise the impacts on Māori adopted outside their iwi and culture, the impacts on mothers whose babies were taken from them, and the impacts on adopted people who became legal fictions and lost the right and ability to know their family and history.

Why an apology is needed…

A sincere Government apology will go some way to validate the sadness, loss and grief of peoples experiences of adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand.  It will not ‘fix’ adoption or bring ‘closure’.  But it will go some way to place the responsibility of our loss where it belongs, that is, outside of us.  It will say to those ignorant of adoption, that adoption and reunion do not result in happy endings – there is no ending - adoption is life-long.

For adopted people, ‘adoption’ is indelibly written at the deepest part of our being, whether we are conscious of it or not. Neuroscience and the latest findings from psychology help us understand the challenges we face, the way adoption impacts on how we trust and love, on how we experience vulnerability and courage, and at the deepest level, on how shame manifests in our lives. These early experiences are the base on which we build our knowing of the world, and our identity.

The women whose babies were taken from them through adoption were ostracised for being pregnant out of marriage. They were ordered to remain silent forever about the birth of their babies, they were told to never look for their babies, and they have carried the ‘shame’ of their ‘fall from grace’ for decades, just as they have carried the pain and loss that has stained their hearts for so long.

Adoption and reunion is not the panacea that those involved in taking women’s children, and those who condoned adoption, were led to believe. The lost years can never be regained.

We can’t regain the sibling relationships forged through childhood, or the bond that develops between a mother and her child. It won’t erase the sense of non-belonging and shame, or restore our whakapapa and turangawaewae, without which, we are nothing, and have nowhere to stand.

We deserve an apology now - it is long overdue.

Numerous calls for an inquiry into forced adoption and for an apology for the harms caused by adoption have been submitted to the New Zealand government.

Maggie Wilkinson, a natural mother, has been instrumental in this work and presented a petition to government in 2017 requesting a formal inquiry and apology. Here are links to media reports about Maggie’s work:

Stuff report 2016 ‘Mothers call for forced adoption inquiry and apology: 'If Australia can do it, we can'

RNZ report 2017 ‘Call for inquiry into forced adoption’

New Zealand Herald 2017 ‘'Before I die I want a little bit of justice': call for forced adoption inquiry and apology’

New Zealand Herald report 2018 ‘Plea for adoption inquiry: 'I tried to photograph her with my eyes'

Here is the Government’s response to Maggie’s petition for an inquiry into forced adoption. The report concludes that ‘Most of us do not believe that an inquiry is the best way to deal with this issue.’ To date, the Government has done nothing.

From One News 13 May 2023: When Jenny Small was adopted by Pākeha parents in the 1960s, she was cut off from her whakapapa. Six decades later, journalists Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee-Mather reunite Small with her whānau.

Where is Jenny’s apology? Justice delayed is justice denied.

Tell us why an apology is important to you… adoption@xtra.co.nz

• Here’s why Lily wants an apology