Return of 1960s Adoption Levels on Horizon for Single Parents |

Inquiry told a lack of support for single parents could see a return to 1960s adoption levels | The Australian

Inquiry told a lack of support for single parents could see a return to 1960s adoption levels

• by: Lanai Vasek
• From: The Australian
• September 29, 2011 1:02PM

SINGLE mothers have warned of a return to 1960s adoption levels due to a lack of taxpayer-funded support for single parents.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry into former forced adoption policies, the Council of Single Mothers and their Children said it feared a return to the historic adoption level peak due to an “ongoing erosion of the level of payments to single mothers”.

The council said insufficient federal government support for single mothers was a “direct contributor” to past forced adoption practices of health, church and charity organisations.

The Victorian-based group said new rules denying welfare payments to teenage mums who failed to return to the workforce within six months of giving birth would ultimately result in women being pressured to give up their babies.

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It said the commonwealth had a responsibility to ensure mothers had sufficient financial support to raise their children.

“CSMC is extremely concerned that the ongoing erosion of the level of payments to single mothers may lead women to a point where they are unable to financially support their children,” the organisation's executive officer Jane Stanley said.

“Our founding members who remember all too well the times of forced adoption and lack of choice in particular are seriously concerned about provisions announced in the 2011-12 federal budget.”

The CSMC said the government should immediately review income support payments for sole parents, including a full indexation of all Newstart, Austudy and other financial assistance.

The Greens-led inquiry into forced adoption practices has been inundated with submissions detailing the trauma experienced by those who were compelled to relinquish their children for adoption.

Chair of the inquiry, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, said she had never been part of an investigation so “emotionally charged”.

“For some witnesses this is the first time they have given evidence of what they experienced in public,” Senator Siewert said.

“A lot of it is absolutely harrowing evidence.”

The inquiry is probing the commonwealth's role, if any, in the forced adoption practices of the 1960s and 1970s, in which tens of thousands of women who fell pregnant outside marriage had their babies taken from them by church and charity organisations.

The committee is due to release its report on November 21.