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  "path": "/2026/07/02/keir-starmer-tells-victims-forced-adoption-country-profoundly-sorry-29013981/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-02T12:22:04.000Z",
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  "textContent": "To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvideo\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\nSir Keir Starmer has formally apologised on behalf of the nation to the mothers, children and others affected by forced adoption in the UK.\n\nAn estimated 185,000 mothers, adoptees and families were affected by the practices, in which unmarried women were pressured by official bodies into giving up their children because they were not married.\n\nIt resulted in trauma for both those who had their babies taken from them forcibly, and those who grew up removed from their birth family and their identity.\n\nSpeaking in Parliament today, the Prime Minister described the practices as a ‘stain on our history’.\n\nHe said: ‘Children grew up believing they were unwanted.\n\n‘Young mothers were told they were immoral – and that their babies were better off without them.’\n\n##  Everything is changing, all the time\n\nCut through political noise and understand how the Westminster chaos actually affects your life with Metro's politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sign up here.\n\nAddressing campaigners in the gallery above the House of Commons chamber directly, Starmer continued: ‘The shame is not yours.\n\n‘The shame was never yours. The shame is ours.\n\n‘And I say on behalf of the whole country, I say it to every single person impacted, we are deeply and profoundly sorry.’\n\nStarmer met with campaigners in Downing Street today (Picture: Isabel Infantes/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nFormer Labour MP Ann Keen, who was forced to give up her baby aged 17 in 1966, told the BBC’s Today programme she looked forward to ‘being released from my shame’ by the apology.\n\nShe said: ‘We all need this apology because we have always been accused of giving up our babies and we didn’t give them up.’\n\nForced adoption took place in local authorities, in voluntary and faith-based institutions, and in health and social care services primarily between 1949 and 1976.\n\nThose organisations ‘operated with power over people’s lives, yet they did so without compassion, without consent, and without dignity or proper safeguards’, the PM said.\n\nCampaigners outside No 10 today (Picture: Isabel Infantes/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nHe spoke after meeting campaigners, including some of the mothers and adult adoptees, in Downing Street this morning.\n\nToday’s formal apology was the result of years spent by them and their wider families urging action on the issue.\n\nIt comes after the Scottish and Welsh governments issued their own formal apologies in March and April 2023, and after an Education Committee inquiry report recommended an urgent apology.\n\nStarmer also said the government would improve access to adoption records and set up a national online resource to help locate them, alongside a number of other measures.\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,** check our news page.\n\nComment now Comments \nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "Keir Starmer tells victims of forced adoption the country is ‘profoundly sorry’"
}