Wiping away tears, Nita Battise, vice chairperson of the tribal council of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, reacts to the Supreme Court ruling upholding a law that gives Native American families priority in adoptions and foster care placements of tribal children.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
A Supreme Court ruling has upheld the right of Congress to pass laws about Native American tribes’ rights to self-government.
During the Russian occupation of Luhansk Oblast, 15 kids were allegedly taken from this rehabilitation center and moved to Russia.
Wojciech Grzedzinski/The Washington Post via Getty Images
These wartime abductions aren’t specific to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Throughout history, they’ve inflicted trauma on society’s most vulnerable – making them a rich subject matter for the stage.
Tehassi Hill, tribal chairman of the Oneida Nation, stands outside a U.S. appeals court in 2019 after arguments in a case that has made its way to the Supreme Court.
AP Photo/Kevin McGill
A case before the Supreme Court will determine whether a federal law meant to protect Native American children from being forcibly removed from their families is constitutional.
In the 20th century Magdalene laundries were punitive institutions where young “fallen” women – pregnant and unmarried – endured a daily regime of silence, prayer and hard labour. The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996.
William Murphy/lFlickr
The conservative Catholic moral code that underpinned adoption in Ireland penalised vulnerable women and their children. Now a proposed new law seeks to redress the impact of this legacy of shame.
Cutting all links between a child and its family should be the very last option.
vlavetal/www.shutterstock.com
England has far more forced adoptions than elsewhere in Europe. Is this right?
People who have been in care are more likely to have children at an early age and are at greater risk of having their own child taken into care.
Mika Heittola/Shutterstock
Most people reasonably assume there is evidence of good long-term outcomes for children who come into contact with child protection systems. Why else would we intervene in the lives of children and their…
Forced adoption mother Linda Miles poses with a photograph of herself, pregnant at the age of 18 years old.
AAP/Paul Miller
Today in the Great Hall of Parliament House, prime minister Julia Gillard will apologise to those affected by past forced adoption practices. This is the third national apology delivered in recent years…
We may have to apologise for intercountry adoptions in future, just as Victoria has apologised to the children of forced adoption mothers here.
AAP/Paul Jeffers
You might not have realised it, but it is Adoption Awareness Week. Every year at this time lobbyists pull out the big gun – the celebrity card - and Deborra-Lee Furness hits the airwaves. The messages…
The trauma of women forced to give up their children will finally be recognised.
.Andi.
A national apology to Australian mothers who experienced forced adoptions was announced by Attorney General Nicola Roxon last weekend. This apology will follow those made to the Stolen Generations, Forgotten…