Hopedene

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ITV News has been conducting a long-running investogation into what it terms the forced adoption scandal.

Today there has been an announcement that the work has found that sixty-seven babies were buried in unmarked graves. The babies are thought to have died while at Hopedene Home in Newcastle - an institution where unmarried mothers gave birth to their illegitimate children.

The maternity home was run, it is reported, by the Salvation Army between 1950 and 1973.

 ITV's year-long investigation into the historic forced adoption scandal (external link)

In the mid-twentieth century, the shame of bearing an illegitimate child forced women into institutions and homes where they gave birth. Many of the babies were taken from the mothers and then aopted to other families. Many of the children were sent into children's homes and orphanages.

The discovery surely raises questions about why those babies died. Did they die during childbirth? Or when they were infants? Did they die of natural causes? Was the medical care available to them and their mothers suffiicient? Perhaps they died from an epidemic of disease? Or is it possible that they were neglected?

We hope that the work of ITV in this will bring answers for the families and children who have been affected by this.