In a confused speech delivered during a debate on forced adoption in the House of Commons yesterday, Parliamentary Under Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi defended the ongoing practice whilst also labelling the policy, “appalling”.
Zahawi’s ministerial appointment raised eyebrows, after he was found to have attended the now abolished President’s Club Dinner several times, and allegations around him supplying oil to Islamic State were revealed.
The motion for the debate called on the government to offer a public apology to single mothers in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK, who were coerced into giving up their children for adoption, at a time when government viewed single parenthood as a threat to the social fabric of the country. Zahawi sidestepped this request, failing to address it during the debate.
Instead, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Children and Families, who Researching Reform is aware reads this blog, tried to shoehorn some ill timed and awkward comments on modern forced adoption practices during the discussion, after this site called on the government to address the issue.
Before making the comments about today’s forced adoption practices, the MPs involved in the debate were discussing details relating to several of their constituents who had had children taken from them by the state. Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck asks Zahawi to clarify the date of a report he was referring to, which was produced in the 1970’s. This is his reply:
“Yes—I did say that when I referred to it.
Children can only be removed permanently by a court without the consent of the parents if the court is satisfied that the child is suffering significant harm or is likely to suffer significant harm if they remain with their birth family. Courts must consider all the evidence put before them, including evidence from the parents themselves, who will have legal representation. Adoption agencies and fostering services are now inspected by Ofsted, whose role is to ensure that practice is in line with the legal framework.”
Rather oddly, Zahawi then switches to issues around mothers looking to trace their children after losing them to non recent forced adoption:
“For the mothers who are at the heart of this debate, it is essential that they are able to trace their children and that their children can establish their parentage”.
After sharing a few more thoughts on the motion itself, Zahawi then doubles back and makes another comment about current forced adoption practices, this time making some terrible mistakes in the process. This is what he says:
“We believe that the lessons of the time have been learned and have led to significant change both to legislation and practice now. No child is removed from their birth family unless they have suffered significant harm or are at risk of such harm, and of course, parents have legal representatives”.
It’s clear from this speech that Zahawi has very little understanding of forced adoption, and the current crisis within the family courts. As we have written about many times on this site, judges and social workers have become increasingly concerned about the use of forced adoption policies to remove children from parents, and we also know that parents do not, “of course”, have legal representation. In fact, the latest government reports confirm that most parents are now having to represent themselves in court due to a lack of legal aid and an inability to afford private representation.
Trying to make a distinction, as Zahawi does, between non recent and current forced adoption practices is also pointless. There is no difference between non consensual adoption to remove children from mothers in the 1950s, 60s and 70s for being single, and removing children from parents in the twenty first century for being poor, vulnerable or missing out on a full education. Moreover, the similarities between non recent and current forced adoption practices are striking, because they are both rooted in unethical, and unlawful, social engineering.
As Labour MP Stephen Twigg points out during the debate:
“At heart this is a human rights issue. Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 outlines, “the right to respect for…family and private life”. In the case of forced adoptions, it is surely absolutely clear that the parents and children have been denied that most basic of human rights. If the Government accept that that is the case, surely we have a responsibility as a country and they have a responsibility as a Government to address the matter urgently”.
It’s time the government had a debate on forced adoptions taking place today.
Researching Reform 
This will not be resolved until we are able to unseal the family court and allow the press in.
This is the area we should all be focusing on, we can’t create public pressure until the public are allowed to be informed about the individual cases where this is happening.
I have long said our sealed, secret family court is going to be one of the biggest scandals to hit this country.
The human rights of our children have been abused for too long and will continue to be abused until the family court is opened up.
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I agree with you, one grandmother in a family court was told by the judge who said this is my court and you will do as i say now get out of my court and the child was taken into care, the grandmother stood up and asked can she speak as she could not stand to hear the lies said about her
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There are so many meetings re forced adoptions and i agree, but supposing families get an apology, then what in comes the forced foster care that has over taken adoption figures, there is more money and jobs in fostering, and a kid in foster care it goes on and on more corruption in foster care, so is government yet again treating us all like idiots by using the adoptions thinking we will never know truth
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Baies snatched at birth and later adopted by strangersbecause some expert says there is a risk of future emotional harm ………………….??
What lessons have been learned while this goes on today ?
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Do these MPs really care about the suffering to mother caused by past forced adoptions ?If they were sincere they would (instead of offering meanless apologies) promise to try and track down the children then adopted and reveal the names of the adoptive parents for any parents still alive who would like them to do it ;
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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WHERE THE MONEY GOES
2014 payment now £590 per week per child!Most fosterers double this by taking in two children ! As advertised on the back of a bus….
busad2014
Despite all these wonderful descriptions of overpaid foster carers, 10,000 children went “missing” from care,in one year
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Like too many politicians this one is totally ignorant of the present system and how it works. Forced Adoption is used as a weapon by the authorities. Cases are heard in courts where judges accept lies as truth from the local authorities acts of theatrical deception. The whole system is corrupt and all officials concerned support the corruption including MP’s from various parties.
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‘After sharing a few more thoughts on the motion itself, Zahawi then doubles back and makes another comment about current forced adoption practices, this time making some terrible mistakes in the process. This is what he says:
“We believe that the lessons of the time have been learned and have led to significant change both to legislation and practice now. No child is removed from their birth family unless they have suffered significant harm or are at risk of such harm, and of course, parents have legal representatives”.’
Zahawi has clearly failed to recognise that various other types of ‘alleged’ forms of harm can be used against parents and that they are referred to as ‘likely’ to be at risk of…. Even where significant harm gets used as a likelihood, once a parent/s prove themselves in court then the Threshold remains with false information left in it (I would say evidence, but how can hearsay be evidence and how can false diagnosis be evidence) Written records with the Threshold Statement are not corrected and remain on the parent/s written records their entire lives!
We don’t see people taken to criminal court ‘incase’ they commit a crime based on they are ‘likely to commit a crime.’ We see people taken to those court’s when it’s believed there is enough factual evidence, then there is a jury to help decide the outcome; so how can parents be taken to Family Court legitimately and being wrongly accused of crimes they ‘could’ commit in the future where then so could anybody on this planet including the ones making these wrong decisions! Yet this is what goes on all the time in Family Court’s behind closed doors! (secretive Family Courts)
There is still no real clarity or transparency, because too many are being silenced with Restriction Orders and Gagging Orders and threats of prison for daring to share the truth! which says it all really. So yes, children can be/are being wrongly taken! Miscarriage and potential miscarriage of justice is being covered up and swept under the carpet, ‘not’ that ‘the lessons of the time have been learned and have led to significant change both to legislation and practice now.’
If only i could count the amount of times i have seen this written over all these years about lessons have been learnt. Because we are still reading the same thing years later then no lessons have ‘not’ been learnt at all! We’ve had enough of seeing the same newstories repeat like they are going in and out of fashion just to keep the pubic subdued (fooled) all the time!
Forced ‘alleged’ adoption needs a full investigation now and when parents learn the truth of their evidence referring to their own Case years later more fully and of serious procedural errors made, we expect to see justice done like it ought to have been done in the first place with more fake Cases being thrown right out of the Family Court! When one from the Council admits there could have been terrible mistakes made and they need to seek legal advice if they’re not happy then as far as i’m concerned they do know really!
When face to face contact is suddenly stopped and parents with PR are suddenly stopped being invited to any more children’s social services meetings when only an adoption ‘decision’ has been made through Family Court, they do know! (especially when eg they had 18 months to realise!) and they felt so confident as to go straight over the Judge’s head with their Court Order in place because they know they are getting away with it!
When so called mistakes are on written record at Consumer Relations department where children’s (allegedly adopted) are stored and meant to do regular updates as to the accuracy as part of data protection, and as part of that so called serious mistakes were made beforehand and parent/s learn things like there are 2 adoption certificates in place for their child (natural) showing different surnames with it being changed/corrected/tampered with? once the child turns ‘seventeen years old’ without said child’s prior knowledge of this being done (behind their back) they do know and so do the parent/s! Then the alleged adopted child gets to find out, should the parent chose to share it with them as part of life story work! Then the said child gets to learn all along they could have really been in long term foster care! (Just tying in with Maggie Tuttle’s comment)
When there appears to be ‘double Case files/double dipping therefore? and differing years are held on written record by various departments for when Case’s ran from and to, we do know!
When information gets used and evidence gets witheld causing the former to be relied on instead, and it all comes out in the wash no matter how many years it all takes,we are not stupid, we do know!
‘…. and of course, parents have legal representatives”.’ When legal representives as well as the Judge all cover up “fraud” found on a Case by a Judge and all are careful not to include it as such on written record (to cover up criminal activity) because two professionals were responsible, and the Judge works their way right up to the top; we do know and so do they really!
When section 20 CA 1989 is being abused and child/ren are being taken for forced ‘alleged’ adoption when parent/s put it in writing through their Solicitor they wish to have their child returned home safely to them and it does not happen that way, when according to section 20 it should (and when the parent/s who requested only ‘temporary support and did not get it) and so the child/ren were failed and let down then we do know! and so do they!
I hear say not all Children’s Social Workers are bad. It is not just the bad egg Social Workers responsible, when parents have experienced bad practice; to be going against the grain with things they are supposed to do confident they will get away with it which often they do (have done!) then it tells me more about the system and the ones making their decisions as they do in Family Court deciding the childrens futures!
It’s ‘not’ just historical adoption Cases this has happened with, it’s more recent and current so the whole lot needs seriously investigating now, because only the foolish man builds his house upon the sand and continues to do so!
Thank you Natasha for your dedicated honest hard work for truth and transparency, when you too must feel like you’re speaking to a brick wall at times going round in circles xxxx
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44808643?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-england-devon-44737310&link_location=live-reporting-story
Very similar is still going on today with adoption certificates too and some funny business going on!
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog.
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Going from that speech Zahawi is no better than Timpson.
Follow the Money and let the tournament begin!
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on the gagging orders they also state that no one involved in the case must be named
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Children to the slaughter, how true because the lambs to the slaughter have been in their thousands watching the football or thousands marching through parliament for Brexit then thousands watching tennis and now more then 100,000 plus marching against TRUMP, so who will march for the stolen children who are being abused in every way, NO ONE the British have always been known as a cold blooded nation, and the Governments knowing this will continue to have meetings and meetings all going no where only to more pounds to send off shore
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This shambles of a debate has left me with one small triumph ! I INVENTED the term “forced adoption ” in 2002 and named my website “forced-adoption” acoordingly .For years after that any attempt to use that term in court or in Parliament was met with the rebuke that “adoption without parental consent ” was the correct term but now at last even those who uphold the sysytem have in parliament acknowledged the phrase” forced adoption” as being now in common use ;
Adoption by force was never how poor Dr Barnardo conceived the idea and he would now be spinning in his grave if he could have seen the multi million £ organisation still called Barnardos making all this money out of the misery of mothers whose babies have been snatched for adoption by strangers !
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ian you must know Barnardo sold untold kids for £15 each
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Our children and young people are in more danger than ever. They need a champion, but are in danger of being handed on a platter fashioned in Downing Street by a prime minister who is too concerned about her own survival to notice that the platter bearer is already tarnished by previous events. Perhaps she might not care even if made aware of the blemish.
Those in politics have a great facility to sweep truth under the carpet when it suits them.Concepts of honour and integrity died a long time ago among the ranks of those occupying seats at Westminster; perhaps the last remnants died with the recently deceased Lord Carrington at the age of 99.
Having already served in Churchill’s postwar government, this peer decided it was the honourable thing to do to resign voluntarily when Argentina invaded the Falklands on his watch as Foreign Secretary under Margaret Thatcher. He believed that the honour of the country was more important than one man’s ambition or position. Boris Johnson – please take note.
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Foster carers allowance is set to double: flagged up by Maggie Tuttle:
Councillor Dick Madden, Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Children and Families, said: “We are delighted to be able to reward our foster carers with a new financial package and increased support and training. “There will also be increased opportunities for existing carers to be supported financially to extend their homes to provide increased capacity to care for more children.”
absolutely disgraceful.
parents dont get anywhere near that kind of money to care for their children yet Foster carers do. how on earth can that be right. and now they even offer funds to extend their houses to take more children. these people must be rubbing their grubby little hands at this news.
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Pingback: Children And Families Minister Defends Current Forced Adoption Practices In Bizarre Speech « Musings of a Penpusher
Foster carers allowance is set to double: flagged up by Maggie Tuttle:
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/16352205.foster-carers-allowance-is-set-to-double/?ref=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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Forced adoption should be abolished both children and families suffer under the hands of social services and family court my first and only boy was taken 3 days after birth and forcibly adopted I’ve never done no wrong to any child I used to be a party loving person when I was a teen wasn’t we all…. I gave that all up before I even got pregnant he was a blessing and he was a reason to carry on being the woman and mum I could have been now I don’t know where he is how he is as letter box contact erm ye right!!! Nothing….. I was never given a chance… There excuse risk of future emotional harm why because I have anxiety how many amazing mum’s out there with anxiety pure bull!!!!……. I won’t rest till I know MY SON is safe!!!!! ….. Evil business!!! …
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STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING NOW!!!!!
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And when we look out in Nature no other living species has its young taken away by members of its own species because they believe they are not capable of looking after them. only the Human race do that. and out in nature they can defend their young from predators with deadly force if needed but again humans have had that taken away from them.in short humans do not live as nature intended. its too much of a controlled environment.something will have to give in the end.
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