The Welsh government will formally apologise to mothers who were forced to give away their children.
Thousands of unmarried women were forced to give up their children in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
According to The BBC:
Speaking in the Senedd, Deputy Social Services Minister Julie Morgan will say sorry for the failures in society that led to the practice.
The move was welcomed by campaigners who said the UK government should follow suit.
One Welsh woman who was forcibly adopted said she felt “robbed” of her culture after she was taken from a Welsh-speaking mother.
It is likely that thousands of children in Wales were forcibly adopted – a UK Parliament inquiry estimated that 185,000 babies were affected across England and Wales.
The joint committee on human rights of MPs and peers found many women were shamed and coerced into giving up their children.
The Welsh government’s decision comes a month after Scotland’s former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s apology on the same issue, and ten years after Australia said sorry for the practice.
Anne Jones, from Glan Conwy, was adopted as a baby by a family in Llandudno in the 1950s. Her birth mother, Katie Green, from Caernarfon, had her outside of marriage at the age of 36.
She told BBC Wales last year that her mother had “no choice” but to give her up due to “shame” and no financial support.
She said her adoptive family made her feel that she “was illegitimate and therefore wasn’t good enough”.
Although she located her brother, who had stayed with his mother, she was only able to find out who her mother was years after she died.
Ms Jones, 71, has been among those campaigning for a formal UK government apology.
She welcomed the Welsh government’s decision but was disappointed that it was not happening at the UK level.
“One of the things that every adopted person will tell you is: you feel you don’t know who you are.
“You don’t know whether there’s anybody else in the world who looks like you.”
Ms Jones, who grew up in Llandudno, said she had been “robbed” of her culture.
“My mother was Welsh, and because she lived and was born and brought up in Caernarfon, she was Welsh speaking. That’s something I missed out on.”
She added: “I feel sorry for the people in England who have not had their apology yet, because I feel they are being discriminated against.
“It’s a stigma that is put on people. It shouldn’t have happened and they should be receiving an apology.”
