Diana Defries was just 16 when she was told to give up her newborn daughter. But it didn’t happen a century ago – this occurred in 1974.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, thousands of young mothers were sent to homes run by the Church and sanctioned by the Government. There were around 100 of these homes in England alone, and many subjected pregnant women to hard labour, akin to Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries. Here, vulnerable women gave birth, only for their babies to be forcibly removed for adoption.
