Only in recent years have some of the infants forcibly transported decades ago been reunited with their kin. It is difficult to believe the scale of the cruelty involved in the
story of Britain’s child migrants. It was another form of institutional
child abuse, of which we know there was far too much.
It was also a peculiarly British and Irish phenomenon; no other country practised anything like this policy for children who, in the phrase of the time, were “born out of wedlock”. They were given up for adoption – not always with the full-hearted consent of the mother. Many stayed in care homes and with adoptive families in this country, where there was a better chance of eventually being able to trace their biological parents. Those exported to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) had much less chance of finding their birth family later in life.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/britains-child-migrants-institutions-that-separated-families-must-help-make-amends-a6715616.html
It was also a peculiarly British and Irish phenomenon; no other country practised anything like this policy for children who, in the phrase of the time, were “born out of wedlock”. They were given up for adoption – not always with the full-hearted consent of the mother. Many stayed in care homes and with adoptive families in this country, where there was a better chance of eventually being able to trace their biological parents. Those exported to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) had much less chance of finding their birth family later in life.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/britains-child-migrants-institutions-that-separated-families-must-help-make-amends-a6715616.html