SAN
ANTONIO, Chile, Feb 25 (Reuters) - "I knew she'd find me," Edita
Bizama, 64, said from her home in the Chilean port city of San Antonio
after finally reuniting with the daughter who was taken from her over 40
years ago during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Adamary
Garcia was removed from her mother a few days after birth and sent
abroad for adoption, one of as many as 20,000 children that authorities
estimate were forcibly taken from their parents by a military government
that saw international adoptions as a way to reduce child poverty.
"There
was a social worker that was persistent, really persistent," Bizama
said. It was 1984 and Bizama, who already had two young children, had
expressed an interest in adoption during her pregnancy. But then she
started having doubts.
"But
the social worker said, how are you going to raise three children? You
don't have a job, you don't have a home, you don't have any stability."
Bizama
said she spent five days with her daughter, holding and feeding her,
before she was taken to an office a few hours away, forced to hand over
her baby and sent on a bus back to her hometown.
It was a secret Bizama kept from most of her family for decades. She had no name or way of finding her daughter.
Thousands
of miles away, Adamary Garcia - who grew up in Florida and now lives in
Puerto Rico - knew she had been adopted but knew nothing about the
circumstances.
Then
a friend shared a story about Tyler Graf, a Texas firefighter who found
out he had been taken as an infant during the dictatorship and had
started an NGO, Connecting Roots, to reconnect adoptees with their
biological families in Chile.
Traced
via her sister's birth certificate and then confirmed with a DNA test,
Connecting Roots identified Bizama as Garcia's birth mother.
Item
1 of 7 Edita Bizama laughs with her daughter Adamary Garcia, one of the
victims of Pinochet-era forced adoptions, at the airport in Santiago,
Chile February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
Garcia,
now 41, looks like her mother and two sisters. Like her older sister,
she has a fascination for dogs - they have rescued and fostered dozens
of dogs between them.
Attendees of
the meeting in Holyrood included The Sunday Post’s Chief Reporter,
Marion Scott, second right. Attendees gathered to discuss the lack of
action following then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s high-profile
apology for the forced adoption scandal, which was issued last year
prior to her leaving the role.
The
Scottish Government must compensate the victims of the forced adoption
scandal, now that it has accepted responsibility, a leading lawyer has
said.
Experts say the injustice of taking babies from their mothers simply
because they were not married compares with the harm caused by both the
infected blood and in-care abuse scandals.
Solicitor Advocate Patrick McGuire, who heads negligence firm Thompsons Solicitors,
told a round table inquiry in the Scottish parliament last week: “When
Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered the forced adoption
apology last year on behalf of the state, she accepted responsibility
for what happened.
“Accepting that responsibility comes with the unanswerable
requirement to create a redress scheme to help victims recover from the
trauma and harm they suffered.”
Forced adoption scandal
Calling on victims to ditch the guilt cruelly imposed upon them for
over 50 years, McGuire said: “The forced adoption scandal saw vulnerable
women shamed into silence for decades, an unjust shame which remains a
factor today over why so many still have not felt able to come forward
to seek justice.”
McGuire, whose expert team has been investigating the injustice and human rights abuses inflicted upon Forced Adoption victims until the practice was halted in the late ’70s, said all those involved suffered lifelong harm.
Bullied, threatened with jail if they tried to find their children,
and lied to over their legal rights, he warned the psychological damage
inflicted upon 60,000 mothers, their children and families is still
causing trauma today.
Forced adoption victims and experts meet MSPs in Holyrood.
On behalf of the Scottish Government, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered an unreserved apology in March 2023.
She said: “Ultimately, it is the state which is morally responsible for
setting standards and protecting people. As modern representatives of
the state, I believe we – among others – have a special responsibility
to the people affected. We have a responsibility to do whatever we can
to support them, in dealing with the legacy of what happened.”
She added: “The issuing of a formal apology is an action governments
reserve for the worst injustices in our history. Without doubt, the
adoption practices which prevailed in this country for decades fit that
description.”
McGuire said: “Forced adoption shares hallmarks with the infected
blood scandal and the thousands of children in care who suffered
appalling sexual and physical abuse decades ago in residential school
and homes.
“Individuals were treated inhumanely decades ago, in circumstances that were ultimately the responsibility of government.
“The government recognised their responsibility in the formal apologies which followed, just as they did for forced adoption.
“Forced adoption victims have been shamed into silence for decades,
and that unjust shame remains a factor today over why so many victims
still have not felt able to come forward to seek justice.”
‘No excuse’
McGuire, who has championed victims harmed by exposure to deadly
asbestos, mesh-injured patients and bereaved families in the hospital
inquiry, told MSPs there is “no excuse” for the Scottish Government to
delay delivering redress to forced adoption victims.
He said: “As they did in both the infected blood and in-care abuse
scandals, Westminster and Holyrood decided, purely on the basis of a
moral case, to create compensation schemes after recognising their
responsibility for what happened. The Scottish Government already have
the blueprint for redress schemes. They must proceed without delay.
“Without The Sunday Post exposing this dark, hidden episode in
Scotland’s history, the victims of forced adoption would have continued
suffering some of the worst examples of injustice I’ve ever encountered.
“It’s deeply upsetting so many mothers who had their babies taken from them have passed away without getting justice.
“That is why it is incumbent upon the government to do the right
thing as a matter or urgency. The scandal becomes ever more shameful as
time passes and more victims are denied justice for something which
never should have happened.”
The campaign
Supported by MSPs Monica Lennon and Miles Briggs, campaign group
Forced Adoption Scotland, who secured the apology, is calling on victims
to put aside the shame unjustly forced upon them to come forward and
seek redress.
Campaigner Marion McMillan,
74, said: “We’ve been silenced for over 50 years. Our legal and human
rights were taken from us at the same time our babies were torn from our
arms and given to married couples as we wept.
“Times have changed so radically; we recognise how difficult it must
be for people today to fully understand what was done to us. We were
terrified of authority, threatened with being thrown in jail if we tried
to find our babies. We were told we were worthless, not fit to be
mothers simply because we fell in love outside of marriage.
“Nobody at Forced Adoption Scotland made a lifestyle choice to give
their baby up. If what was done to us was attempted today, those
responsible would be behind bars. The Scottish Government did the right
thing by delivering a formal apology. But since then, they’ve failed to
engage with Forced Adoption Scotland and failed to keep the promises
they made to our mothers, adoptees and families who have suffered
unbearably.
“Because of those failures, we believe the only way forward now is
for a redress scheme. We need funds to pay for the specialist support
and counselling to repair the damage done to us.”
Forced Adoption Scotland adoptee Marjorie White, 73, said: “After
recognising the harm done to us, the Scottish Government then tried to
do things on the cheap by funding counselling services from
inexperienced groups with no experience of dealing with the kind of the
trauma we suffered.
“At the same time, experienced trusted organisations like Birthlink
have not been given adequate government funding to provide the support
and services we need, and they are best at delivering.
“When Nicola Sturgeon delivered the formal apology, we were full of
hope that after decades of silence and pain, at last our suffering would
end and the wrongs of the past would finally be recognised.
“She promised all victims would get the help and support we needed to
recover from the harm we suffered, the trauma of having our identities
taken from us and the years of searching and never getting answers
because the adoption system prevented us.
“But after she stepped down as First Minister, those who were
supposed to keep the promises she made failed us dismally. In fact, the
blundering attempts they made to provide support which was entirely
unsuitable have caused even further damage. That is unforgivable.
“Government ministers and officials have made little or no attempt to
work alongside Forced Adoption Scotland despite our decades long fight
for the formal apology and our success achieving it.
“Our group contains members from every side of the adoption scandal,
but there has been no consultation with us. Adoptees in particular have
been left out of discussions. We all matter. We all suffered lifelong
harm and distress.
“I have spent much of my adult life receiving counselling for what
was done to me, and I have trained as a counsellor so in effect I could
try and heal myself. When I compare the quality of the services the
government are offering, I have more experience than those being paid
public money to supposedly help us. It’s unacceptable.”
The Scottish Government said: “Our deepest sympathies are with the
mothers, adoptees and families who have endured immense pain and
suffering as a result of these unjust practices.
“We recently held sessions with mothers and adoptees. We are taking
forward actions based on these discussions, and we continue to fund the
charity Health in Mind to offer specialist support to those affected by
historic adoption.”
If you’re a victim, you can contact Forced Adoption Scotland
on Facebook and Thompsons Solicitors Scotland on 0800 0891 331 or on
WhatsApp. The Sunday Post’s chief reporter is Marion Scott – mascott@sundaypost.com
Taken from mother by nuns, victim finds solace in pope's Belgium visit
Matthieu DEMEESTERE
Pope Francis on Friday said he was
"saddened" to learn about a little-known scandal that still troubles
Belgium: the "forced adoption" of newborns taken from their mothers,
with the complicity of nuns.
To Lieve Soens, who was listening in the audience, the pontiff's words meant a great deal.
The 50-year-old has been on a decades-long quest to find closure after she was torn from her mother at birth.
"I
am very satisfied, it is a great start," she told AFP while travelling
home from the royal residence in Brussels where Francis addressed
political and civil society leaders as part of a three-day visit.
"We are being recognised as victims and that is very important".
Soens
was adopted by a Belgian couple in 1974, shortly after her birth in
northern France to a woman who opted to remain anonymous under a system
known as delivering "under X".
Fifty years later, she is still
trying to understand how her biological mother- a teenager at the time- was taken by nuns from Lommel in Belgium to Dunkirk, more than 200
kilometres (120 miles) away, to deliver a baby she would never see
again.
A first step was to try to track down her birth mother.
With the help of a victim support group, she located her in Belgium's
Dutch-speaking Flanders, where she herself lives.
But her offer to meet was turned down, in a letter sent via a lawyer.
"Maybe she is afraid," Soens told AFP in an interview at her home in the Flemish town of Kuurne earlier this week.
"After
the birth, she was told the baby was dead, and she likely never told
her new family about this pregnancy at the age of 16- it's just too
hard," she said.
- Church 'apology' -
In 2023, the Flemish
newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws published the hard-hitting testimony of
multiple victims of forced adoption, including a mother whose newborn
had been taken from her.
The paper's investigation estimated that Belgian nuns had been involved in around 30,000 such cases between 1945 and the 1980s.
Most
of the births were in Belgium, but 3,000 to 4,000 pregnant women were
taken to France, according to Binnenlands Geadopteerd, a support group
for the victims of forced adoptions.
There, the "under X" system erases all filial link between mother and child.
Most
cases involved young, unmarried women - some of them victims of rape
or incest - whose parents wanted their pregnancy kept under wraps.
The parents would contact Church officials, who provided the link to families wishing to adopt.
"We
see how the bitter fruit of wrongdoing and criminality was mixed in
with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society
at that time," Pope Francis said in Brussels.
The Belgian
conference of bishops has formally apologised on several occasions over
the scandal - when it first erupted in 2015 and again last year.
It has said it would welcome an outside investigation to ensure full accountability, but none has so far taken place.
In her search for her roots, Soens had the support of her adoptive parents.
They were convinced, she says, that they were doing the right thing by taking in an unwanted baby.
They
showed her documents from 1974 including her birth certificate
mentioning her adoption and change of name, and a bill from the private
clinic where she was born.
- 'Every day counts' -
After they passed away some 20 years ago, she ramped up her efforts.
"I
don't want to hurt anyone, I just want the truth," she said, while
acknowledging her "anger towards the Church, the nuns and the clinic"
who all played a role.
On Friday Soens was among the guests for
the pope's speech at Laeken palace, where he also reaffirmed that the
Catholic Church must "seek forgiveness" for the scourge of child sexual
abuse.
At one point she and two fellow "adoptees" had hopes of an
audience with the pope, but Church authorities chose to focus on
bringing Francis face to face with a group of about 15 individuals who
suffered clerical sex abuse as minors.
A poor decision in the view
of Debby Mattys, who co-founded the Binnenlands Geadopteerd group and
is pressing for access to clerical archives.
"The Church can help
us find solutions to bring birth parents together with the children who
were taken from them," said the 57-year-old - herself a victim of
forced adoption in the 1960s.
"It is truly urgent, because our parents are already getting old. Every day counts."
© Andrew Cawley
© Andrew Cawley
