​

​Adoption, Exploitation, and the Ongoing Exclusion of Survivors

​

The Scottish Adult Adoptee Movement (SAAM) has watched recent parliamentary debates and Education Committee evidence with deep concern.

Once again, discussions about child abuse, exploitation, safeguarding, and victims’ rights have proceeded without adopted people, despite adoption being a lifelong, state-authorised intervention that permanently ends safeguarding oversight.

Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI)

Adopted people were explicitly excluded from the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

This exclusion mattered.

For many adoptees, SCAI could have been the only realistic route to truth and accountability. Unlike other survivors, adoptees are routinely blocked from:

• criminal justice (historic abuse, evidential thresholds)

• civil action (time-barred claims, lack of duty of care)

• family courts (irreversible orders; no standing)

• care complaints systems (which end at adoption)

• redress schemes tied to “care” settings

The Inquiry could have examined abuse, exploitation, and systemic failure linked to adoption placements. It chose not to. That decision has left adopted survivors without truth, recognition, or remedy.

Stephen Kerr’s MSP Amendment & Parliamentary Debate

Recent debate around Stephen Kerr’s amendment has focused heavily on accuracy, politicisation, and online abuse of MSPs. Accuracy does matter — and it is correct that the amendment was not a stand-alone “grooming gangs inquiry.”

However, what has been entirely absent from that debate is this central truth:

Adoption is the only state placement where the state permanently steps back from responsibility.

The amendment sought research into group-based child exploitation. Yet adoption — where safeguarding duties legally end — remains outside exploitation, abuse, and victim frameworks altogether.

This is not a technical oversight. It is a structural exclusion.

Education Committee Evidence

Evidence given to the Education, Children and Young People Committee again demonstrated how:

• exploitation is framed only through criminal or sexual abuse lenses

• lawful state actions (such as adoption) remain out of scope

• adopted people are not recognised as a group with distinct, lifelong risk and harm profiles

Expert groups, including those led by Professor Alexis Jay, do important work. But they operate within frameworks that do not examine adoption as a safeguarding endpoint. As a result, adopted survivors remain invisible.

The Promise — and the Gap

Scotland has promised that every child will be loved, respected, and protected.

Yet in practice:

• care ends at adoption

• oversight ends at adoption

• complaint routes end at adoption

• recognition ends at adoption

Adopted people are promised protection as children — then legally reclassified out of protection for life.

That silence is not neutral. It is harmful.

Adoptee Rights (SAAM)

SAAM reiterates that adopted people are entitled to the same fundamental rights as other survivors:

The Right to Know
– full, unredacted records
– truth about decisions, placements, and harm

The Right to Be Known
– recognition as a distinct group affected by state action
– inclusion in inquiries, safeguarding, and policy frameworks

The Right to Autonomy
– legal standing in adulthood
– access to justice, remedy, and support
– the right to challenge lifelong orders imposed in childhood

Conclusion

This is not about party politics.
It is about accountability.

When adoption is excluded from inquiries, amendments, and safeguarding frameworks, survivors are not protected — they are buried.

Scotland cannot claim to lead on children’s rights while continuing to exclude adopted people from truth, justice, and recognition.

SAAM will continue to speak — because silence has already cost too much.

Scottish Adult Adoptee Movement (SAAM)
Adoptee-led. Rights-based. Truth-focused.