A global survey which aims to understand adoptees and their lives better has been launched.

The pilot questionnaire, which launched today, was created by adult adoptee Paul Brian Tovey. Tovey is also the founder of Adult Adoptee Adoption-Annulment Global, a movement which aims to secure an automatic legal right for adoptees to revert back to their birth identities.

Currently in countries like the UK, adoptees who wish to take back their birth names and have that change legally recognised must go to the high court and lodge a submission. This is an incredibly expensive process with a very high legal bar in place, all of which means adoptees are rarely able to secure such legal changes.

The survey follows an earlier poll Tovey launched last year with adult adoptee Suzanne Davies, which looked at adoptee experiences in the UK. The questionnaire gathered 95 responses from UK adoptees.

The latest survey is made up of 47 questions, and is completely anonymous.

The introduction to the survey says:

“It’s our pro bono job to set that into motion and set Adoptee-voices free. This survey will be painful we think. We cannot alter any policies though/increase awareness without evidence of unmet needs/pain. That is sad but also true. Some of you will be happy Adoptees, some will not ..We wish you all the best in doing the survey and we care for you in our hearts.”

The questions can be accessed here.

Many thanks to Paul for alerting us to the survey.