As 2025 draws to a close, adoptees and those with experience of care reflect on years of testimony, engagement, and participation in processes that promised learning and reform. Time and again, voices were welcomed — yet just as often placed outwith scope, redirected, or rendered symbolic.

This is an End of 2025 Statement from Adoptee Rights UK. It marks a point of transition — from reflection to accountability.

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This work began in Scotland, and Scotland remains central to it. Scotland listened. But listening alone is not enough. The rights of children, and of those who are adopted or have experience of care, must be recognised and protected across the whole of the UK.

As the UK approaches the centenary of modern adoption law in 2026, Adoptee Rights UK is no longer asking only to be heard. It is calling for change.

Many years ago, a recurring pattern became clear: those who were adopted were repeatedly and systematically excluded.

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This pattern was evident in the National Confidential Forum, established to hear the experiences of those abused in care in Scotland. Its remit was narrowly defined, and people who had been adopted were excluded. When the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry was established, that exclusion became explicit.

Adopted people who experienced abuse within adoption placements were informed that they fell outside the inquiry’s scope. Abuse occurring within adoption placements was categorised as taking place within “private family life” and therefore outside state responsibility. Such cases were described as difficult to evidence and unlikely to meet legal thresholds. Adopted people were excised from recognition once again.

The same structural pattern appeared in law. During the 2002 reform of adoption law in England and Wales, and later in the 2007 Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act, adoption was framed as permanent and complete, yet those who were adopted were not constituted as autonomous rights-holders within the legal framework. Fundamental gaps were left at structural and equality levels, particularly as adoptees moved into adulthood.

In Scotland, Fiona Duncan chaired the The Independent Care Review. Over 5,500 people with lived experience of care were listened to. From this work came The Promise a commitment to transformative change so that every child would grow up loved, safe, and respected. At the same time, related reform work was taking place in England under Josh MacAlister, through a different framework and scope.

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The promise of transformation shifted again with the move to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law. Following a ruling by the Supreme Court, it became clear that Scotland could not extend UNCRC protections into reserved areas of law. Adoption, governed at UK level, fell outside devolved competence. As the UNCRC (Scotland) Bill progressed, adoptees were left behind.

Alongside this, the Joint Committee on Human Rights undertook an inquiry into historical adoption practices in England and Wales, titled The Right to Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976. The inquiry examined whether the state had breached the right to family life through coercive practices affecting unmarried mothers. While it acknowledged that harm was lifelong, its focus remained on injustice at the point of separation. Children appeared primarily in relation to their mothers’ rights, rather than as autonomous rights-holders themselves. Adoption as a lifelong legal status — and the ongoing human-rights position of adoptees  was not examined.

Those who fell outside the scope of the JCHR review were left unheard. While Scotland did listen to adoptee voices through lived-experience processes, those voices increasingly functioned as symbolic rather than determinative. Being heard did not translate into legal inclusion.

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When Scotland issued its apology for historical forced adoption practices, it became apparent to many adoptees that the apology was not accompanied by rights, remedies, or legal recognition. Adoptees who had given evidence were not included as autonomous rights-holders. The injustice was acknowledged, but the adopted person’s legal position remained unchanged.

Throughout this period, adoptee advocates continued to engage. Through SAAM, adoptees compiled lived experience, legal analysis, and core circumstances into detailed recommendations, contributing to The Promise and wider historical consultations. Those consultations were later cancelled by the Scottish Government, citing UK-level funding pressures, while adoption law and its lifelong consequences remained unresolved.

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Scotland proceeded with UNCRC incorporation, followed by justice and children’s planning legislation. In each, adoptee rights remained invisible. Even where “care experience” was recognised, adoption continued to sit uneasily — referenced rhetorically, but excluded in law. More recently, adoptee campaigners with years of sustained engagement and rights-based expertise have increasingly been met not with policy dialogue, but with case-handling responses that individualise structural issues and narrow accountability.

As Scotland approaches elections amid unkept promises, partial apologies, and constitutional constraint, adoptees look south and recognise a familiar pattern. Voices are removed. People are placed outwith scope. No other group of UK citizens is expected to accept the permanent legal consequences of adoption without access to review, remedy, or equality protection.

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SAAM began with its roots in Scotland, bringing adoptees together to investigate, evidence, and document experiences long treated as isolated or exceptional. From that work, Adoptee Rights UK was formed — not to leave Scotland behind, but because Scotland alone cannot deliver the rights of children, adopted people, and those with experience of care. These rights require recognition and protection across the UK.

In 2026, Adoptee Rights UK will run its first national adoptee survey and hold its first in-person conference, creating space for evidence, discussion, and collective direction. Full details will be announced through our social media channels and published on our website.

As the UK approaches the centenary of modern adoption law, Adoptee Rights UK calls for the incorporation of the UNCRC into UK adoption law, and for people who are adopted and/or have a history of care to be explicitly recognised within the Equality Act.

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Adoptee Rights UK calls for the incorporation of the UNCRC into UK adoption law, and for people who are adopted and/or have a history of care to be explicitly recognised within the Equality Act. SAAM

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As 2025 comes to a close, we want to wish everyone festive cheer and a moment of rest and reflection. We hope the year ahead brings renewed commitment to children’s rights, justice, and accountability — and we invite all who care about these issues to support and join the movement in 2026.