Shameful silence has endured for too long – victims must be heard

Marion McMillan was just 17 when she was ordered from her family home in disgrace after becoming pregnant.

She was banished to a mother and baby home where her tiny son was forcibly taken from her – simply because she was not married.

Marion, now 74, said it opened “an abyss of grief and sorrow”.

“I was forced to give adoptive parents my most precious gift,” she explained.

“He was nine months old when I was ordered out of the room to go and get the clothes I had knitted for him, days before his first Christmas.

“When I returned with his knitted booties, his crib was empty and I would not see him again for 40 years.

“A gift wrapped in sorrow, my baby son. I was helpless to prevent my baby being taken.”

Almost exactly one year ago outgoing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon apologised for forced adoption, describing it as one of the “worst injustices in our history”.

She admitted victims had faced an evil “almost impossible to comprehend”, and later added: “This was my last proper statement as Scotland’s First Minister and

Officials in Scotland should take note

I can’t think of an issue that was more important.”

They were the words victims had campaigned so hard to hear.

The sentiment appeared genuine – and there were hopes commensurate recompense would follow.

Yet a year on, Marion says she has heard virtually nothing more from the Scottish Government.

Scotland’s oldest adoptee Marjorie White, 73, from Edinburgh, has also struggled to engage officials.

She describes a “life of pain”, carrying an impossible burden she did nothing to deserve.

Having faced a wall of silence for decades, victims were surely justified in assuming last year’s apology would signal a longoverdue move toward tangible redress.

And so the glacial progress since is disappointing.

Victims will not take the situation lying down and legal experts predict we could be about to witness one of the biggest human rights abuse cases the country has seen. There is precedent.

Some Australian states are currently considering redress.

The state of Victoria is establishing a £100 million scheme, with £30,000 for individuals as well as access to specialist support and counselling services.

Officials in Scotland would be well advised to take note.

Nothing will ever fully right the wrongs of forced adoption – not any number of warm words, nor any amount of money.

The shameful silence, the unwillingness to take meaningful responsibility, has endured for too long.

And so every effort must be made to achieve some kind of justice.

The victims, both living and departed, deserve no less.