WHEN Marg Green, of Monash, was taken from her birth mother when she was five weeks old, it fell to other young women at the girls' home to tell the new mother ''hurry your baby is going!''
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The 17-year-old new mother ran to the window to see her dark-haired infant being taken away by a couple who were walking away from the building.
The teenager had tried to prevent an adoption by insisting upon having her surname written on her daughter's birth certificate, in the belief that it would mean she couldn't be taken away.
The young mother was one of thousands of single Australian women who were subjected to the forced adoption policies prevalent around the nation between the 1940s to the 1980s.
A Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth's role in former forced adoption policies last year heard accounts ranging from mothers being physically shackled to beds, to social workers failing to advise them of government payments that may have been available to support them to keep their child.
The ACT government will issue a formal apology on Tuesday to people affected by forced adoption practices and Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has said the Commonwealth would make a similar apology at a later date.
Mrs Green, who is a member of the Adoption Mosaic group in Canberra, said the apology was an important step but funding was needed to help adoptees find their records and make contact with their birth parents if they wanted to do so.
''The apology means that at least the trauma those women went through is recognised,'' she said.
''It's important to raise awareness in the general community because there are so many birth mothers who are not game to speak about it and it will give them permission to do that. It will also help adopted people start a journey if they want to.''
Mrs Green said she had never suspected she was adopted while growing up, even though she did not look like her parents, because she was so well loved.
''I never doubted I was my grandmother's favourite and I had 27 cousins,'' she said.
Mrs Green was told by her parents at age 22 that she was adopted and she went looking for her birth mother in her 40s.
''The reunion was fantastic, she was just like me,'' she said.
Both of her mothers have since passed away.
Mrs Green said she wanted more counsellors to be trained to help people whose lives were affected by adoption.
''It is important that this counselling be available at an affordable price if not free in the reunion stages,'' she said.