New York, U.S.A. — President Barack Obama announced a renewed commitment by the U.S. government to fight human trafficking through the Partnership for Freedom: Innovation Awards to Stop Human Trafficking, a public-private initiative led by Humanity United, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, with support from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative. The Partnership for freedom will fund innovative solutions to improve care for survivors of human trafficking and modern-day slavery.

“Trafficking survivors all too often face obstacles in accessing the comprehensive services they need to rebuild their lives,” Humanity United CEO Randy Newcomb said. “While federally-funded efforts to assist trafficking survivors have laid a strong foundation, there is still so much to be done. We can and must do better to find evidence-based models to effectively support survivors, and this initiative is a step in that direction.”

Humanity United, a foundation established by philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar that is dedicated to building peace and advancing human freedom, is joining together with the federal government and with founding support from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative to establish a $6 million challenge award.

The challenge will call upon local communities to develop collaborative and comprehensive solutions to human trafficking survivor care that can be evaluated and expanded nationally and internationally through federal policies and programs. ”We are honored to support the public-private Partnership for Freedom,” said Dina Habib Powell, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. “By bringing together the corporate, governmental and nonprofit sectors to fund and scale practical solutions, we believe this initiative can have a real impact in the lives of trafficking survivors.”

Purpose of the commitment

Over the next few months, Humanity United will convene leading researchers, stakeholders, community organizations and government officials to help design and administer the award. The initial round of the award, to launch in 2013, will support the most innovative approaches in three areas:

• sustainable housing and shelter solutions for all types of trafficking survivors
• comprehensive care and case management for survivors who are minors
• law enforcement engagement with survivors

The federal government, along with private donors such as the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative, will commit financial resources and technical expertise to support the award, and will offer evaluation services to determine which approaches are proven to work. The goal will be to identify promising ideas and solutions at the local and community level that can later be nationally scaled and internationally replicated.

The Partnership for Freedom will consist of three levels of support aimed at innovation, evaluation and scale:

• Community Conversation Grants will be awarded to encourage dialogue and activate local coordination.
• Challenge Grants will be awarded to innovative community-level initiatives with the most promise of being scaled.
• Scale will be achieved by pairing challenge grant winners with evaluators to identify which innovations can be expanded nationally and internationally through federal policies, practices and funding.

Community Conversation Grants

Recognizing that not all communities have existing expertise to design these innovations, Community Conversation Grants will enable a series of local stakeholder convenings to explore and establish a coordinated response to meet the needs of trafficking victims in communities around the country.

Challenge Grants

Challenge Grants will support solutions that address major challenges to survivor assistance. Paired with third-party evaluations, Challenge Grant recipients will help to build the body of knowledge for what works for survivors.

In addition to the Community Conversation Grants and Challenge Grants, the Partnership for Freedom will pair grant winners with academic researchers and program evaluators to build an evidence base of the most effective approaches. These projects will be coordinated with existing federal government efforts in order to fill key gaps in knowledge and practice, and to maximize the potential for these approaches to inform future policies and programs.

To ensure widespread commitment to this effort, an advisory board composed of a variety of stakeholders including prominent leaders in the field, advocates, senior law enforcement officials and survivors will be established to help inform the award criteria and selection process, and determine the award parameters.

Background of the proposal

Human trafficking has been identified as the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that human trafficking generates $32 billion annually. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), at any given moment more than 20 million people are trapped in slave-like conditions around the world. While Humanity United and many others continue to work on the root causes of this global phenomenon, this initiative will address much-needed efforts to help those who are survivors of human trafficking.

Image Courtesy of  pennstatelive

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Washington, U.S.A. — The Concord Coalition has said that new projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) underscore the need for Washington to commit to long-term fiscal reforms while dealing with this year’s looming budget decisions. Concord said the new numbers should also provide a sobering picture for this year’s candidates for federal office one that should temper election-year impulses to offer voters unrealistic promises.

“Once again, CBO’s projections show that if politicians don’t deviate from current policies, the country will continue down an unsustainable path that threatens to weaken the country, jeopardize our standard of living and leave our children and future generations with unmanageable levels of government debt,” said Robert L. Bixby, Concord’s executive director. “These numbers should frame this year’s political debates, and candidates from both parties would do well to spend some time studying their implications.”

“We need to put the country on a better fiscal path,” he added, “and candidates must clearly explain to voters — with specifics, not empty rhetoric — how they plan to do that. It will require setting priorities and making changes throughout the federal budget, and voters deserve to hear credible plans for doing this.”

CBO’s Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook estimates that the federal deficit for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, will total $1.1 trillion. While that is down slightly from CBO’s March projection, it will be the fourth consecutive deficit of more than $1 trillion. In addition, federal debt held by the public would reach 73 percent of GDP, which CBO notes is the highest level since 1950 and is “about twice the share that it measured at the end of 2007, before the financial crisis and recession.”

The CBO prepared two sets of projections. The first — the CBO’s “baseline projections” — assumes that current laws will generally remain in effect. An alternative scenario, however, looks at what could happen if Congress changes certain laws to continue many current policies. This alternative scenario presents a far more troubling long-term picture. Using the new CBO numbers, The Concord Coalition today updated its own “Plausible Baseline,” which applies what Concord considers to be realistic assumptions about future policy decisions. These projections are close to the CBO’s alternative scenario.

The budget office notes that the outlook for budget deficits, federal debt and the economy are “especially uncertain now because substantial changes to tax and spending policies are scheduled to take effect in January 2013.” These changes have often been called the “fiscal cliff” because if Congress allows all of them to take effect at once, it could cause substantial short-term economic damage, perhaps triggering a recession.

Under Concord’s Plausible Baseline, deficits between 2013 and 2022 would be much higher, averaging over 5 percent of GDP rather than 1 percent. Debt held by the public would grow to 93 percent of GDP by 2022, the highest level since shortly after World War II. As the budget office points out, that is not a sustainable level of federal debt.

“The differences between the CBO baseline and either CBO’s alternative scenario or Concord’s Plausible Baseline are striking, and they highlight the importance of the policy decisions that elected officials must confront before the end of the year,” Bixby said.

“While it is important to support the economic recovery, Washington should also be laying the groundwork for the big fiscal reforms that are necessary to put the federal budget on a more responsible track over the long term. It is possible to do both, but this will require more thoughtful policy-making and greater bipartisanship than we have seen in Washington recently.”

• Choices over tax policy, account for the bulk of the difference between the CBO baseline and the more plausible scenarios within the 10-year budget window. Extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, along with fixes to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and debt service costs would add $5.2 trillion to deficits over 10 years.
• In CBO’s baseline projections, mandatory spending will increase from 13.3 percent of GDP in 2013 to 14.4 percent in 2022. Nearly all of that increase would be due to the growth of just Social Security and Medicare — representing the effect of the baby boom generation entering retirement. CBO projects that by 2022 over half of the entire federal budget will be spent on just Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
• For Medicare specifically, baseline growth is not attributable to health care inflation but instead to demographics.
• The mandatory spending category of income security, now higher than normal because of the recession, would drop by over 60 percent over the budget window (from 2.1 percent of GDP to 1.3 percent).
• Interest payments under the Concord Plausible Baseline would more than double, growing from 1.4 percent of GDP this year to 3.6 percent in 2022, and would cost over $5 trillion during the 10-year period.
• If the caps included in the Budget Control Act are adhered to, CBO projects that discretionary spending would decrease from 8.3 percent of GDP in 2012 to 5.6 percent by 2022 — the lowest level in the last 50 years.

For more about our plausible baseline visit:

http://www.concordcoalition.org/concord-coalition-plausible-baseline

Image Courtesy of  Third Way

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Hollywood, U.S.A. - Jenny Fenton is passionate about swordfish. After all, they are a top ocean predator whose survival is vital to balancing the ocean’s ecosystem as well as being an important food source.

But years of overfishing in the Florida Straits — where America’s swordfish nursery is located — have depleted their population. So much so that long line fishing gear is now outlawed in the Straits and juvenile swordfish caught there measuring 47 inches or less must be released. Long line gear uses up to 1,000 hooks strung on a single line to catch large quantities of fish.

Fenton, a graduate student in marine biology at Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center, decided to make her passion a research project. During the last two years, she has been analyzing the survival rates of juvenile swordfish caught by fishermen using rod and reel and buoy gear. Her research is the first study of its kind.

Of the 20 satellite tags she plans to put on the captured fish, data from 16 have been analyzed. Five of the fish have died within a day, while nine survived without problems.

Her findings are important because the federal government is considering a measure that would allow recreational fishermen to catch swordfish for commercial use. If that happens, the number of juvenile swordfish caught could skyrocket in the Florida Straits, which goes through South Florida. Most of the adult swordfish found in waters throughout the Eastern Seaboard were born in the Florida Straits.

Swordfish were once abundant in South Florida. However, long line fishing gear dramatically depleted the species. In response, federal authorities banned this type of gear in the Florida Straits in 2001.

In 2003, a limited swordfish buoy gear fishing method developed in the Straits that uses only about 15 single hooks and float combinations, near the ocean’s surface. However, NSU Oceanographic Center research Scientist David Kerstetter, Ph.D., Fenton’s graduate advisor, conducted a study from 2007 to 2010 that found a few juvenile swordfish deaths from the buoy gear.

More than a decade after the long line ban, local swordfish stocks have returned to healthier levels. However, catch-and-release fishing has resulted in some dead swordfish. A potential decision to allow recreational fishermen to sell their catch commercially would put more juvenile swordfish at risk.

Fenton, whose study is sponsored by the NOAA Fisheries Service, will share her data with the federal agency. Then it will be up to resource managers to decide whether allowing swordfish anglers to sell their catch commercially is worth the fishing pressure it would put on their nursery grounds.

“This has been a fascinating project working with such an important species to both recreational fishing and the commercial fishing industry,” Fenton said. “I hope my data will be used to sustain healthy populations of swordfish for future generations to enjoy, as well as balancing the ecosystem.”

Fenton, who is using this project as her master’s thesis, said the four remaining tags will be deployed soon.

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Despite objections from environmentalists and utility officials, New Jersey is under threat of mandatory fluoridation, which is the addition of fluoride chemicals into the public drinking water ostensibly to reduce tooth decay. Despite admission by the Federal Government that American children are fluoride over-exposed and that fluoride’s benefits are primarily topical, New Jersey legislators are crafting a law that will force fluoridation on the entire state, reports the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

“Since fluoride’s benefits are topical, it makes no sense to swallow fluoride and makes even less sense to put fluoride into drinking water when fluoridated toothpaste is available to everyone,” says Paul Connett, PhD, FAN Executive Director and co-author of the book, The Case Against Fluoride.

NJ Senate Bill S-959 and Assembly Bill 1811 will require cities to add unnecessary, untested, health-robbing fluoride chemicals into the public water supplies. ”Not only does this unfunded mandate completely strip away all local control of fluoridation, but requires local taxpayers to fund the estimated $5 billion start-up cost and the annual $1 billion cost to maintain the practice,” says Connett.

“We suggest NJ residents quickly contact the NJ Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and Governor Christie to reject this ill-conceived unfunded fluoridation mandate,” says Connett.

Fluoridation chemicals—often purchased from Mexico, China, and Japan—are hazardous waste by-products of the phosphate fertilizer industry that are contaminated with trace levels of arsenic, lead and radionuclides. These industrial-grade chemicals were never tested for safety in humans or animals, and never received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

While the NJ House and Senate members rush to cast votes that will affect all residents of the State, the public’s voice is being ignored. Testimony was given in opposition to S-959 by the NJ League of Municipalities, the NJ Sierra Club, the NJ Business and Industry Association, the citizens’ group No Fluoride New Jersey, and by numerous local water companies and utilities who explained that fluoride is such a powerful chemical that over time it corrodes their equipment. But most NJ residents are unaware of this pending legislation.

Oddly, the push for mandatory fluoridation in New Jersey comes in the wake of an historical shift in the U.S. fluoridation program. Growing numbers of cities are stopping fluoridation because of health and cost concerns. Since 1990, more than 300 communities in North America voted to end fluoridation, including 43 cities serving approximately 3 million residents since October 2010.

On January 7, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended lowering the level of fluoride added to drinking water. This was in response to national survey data showing that41% of adolescents ages 12-15 have dental fluorosis, or discolored teeth, an outwardly visible sign of fluoride toxicity. However, the new level recommended by HHS (0.7 parts per million fluoride) is still too high to protect all citizens, especially people who drink large amounts of water, kidney patients and babies.

Adding fluoride to drinking water is also an Environmental Justice issue. Black and Mexican American children have significantly higher levels of the more severe forms of dental fluorosis. Add to that over 25published papers associating exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in children while EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory lists fluoride as a developmental neurotoxicant.

Infants drinking formula made up with water containing 0.7 ppm fluoride will receive approximately 175 times more fluoride than a breast-fed infant. Many government, health and dental organizations now advise that infant formula should not be mixed with fluoridated water. Low-income children have a greater risk of suffering from all forms of fluoride toxicity, as poor diet exacerbates fluoride’s detrimental effects.

The NJ legislation was introduced without notifying or requesting comments from those opposing fluoridation. More than 4,000 professionals (including 331 dentists and 518 MD’s) urge that fluoridation be stopped citing scientific evidence that ingesting fluoride is ineffective at reducing tooth decay and has serious health risks. See statement.

Also, 11 US EPA unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals are calling for a moratorium on fluoridation. Connett says, “There are two fundamental scientific questions on water fluoridation: 1) does it work, 2) is it safe. The answer to both is no.”

“Fluoridation promoters routinely exaggerate benefits. The largest survey of tooth decay in the U.S. was conducted by the National Institute for Dental Research in 1986-87. The actual saving was just six-tenths of one tooth surface, without consideration that fluoride causes late tooth eruption. Even promoters of fluoridation now agree that fluoride works through contact with the tooth surface rather than by incorporation into developing enamel.

So this dispute comes down to whether the government should put fluoride into everyone’s water so that fluoride might eventually end up in the saliva to deliver this topical action or whether people should apply it themselves using fluoridated toothpaste. The first approach exposes every tissue of the body to a toxic substance and the second approach avoids that and also avoids forcing it upon people who don’t want it,” says Connett.

“The concerns of a landmark fluoride toxicology review by the National Research Council in 2006 included fluoride’s thyroid effects and fluoride’s ability to damage the brain. There have now been 25 studies showing that fluoride can lower the IQ of children. One well-conducted study found a threshold for this effect at 1.9 ppm.

That leaves a totally inadequate margin of safety to protect every child in America, when one considers the wide range of sensitivity and exposure in a large population,” says Connett. The US EPA is in the process of preparing a new health risk assessment for the maximum level of fluoride allowed as a contaminant in drinking water.

The Fluoride Action Network, a non-profit advocacy group, urges the representatives of New Jersey to delay their vote until the outcome of the EPA’s assessment is known. The conclusion reached by EPA, if they follow normal regulatory procedures, may well be that no amount of fluoride is considered safe for drinking water.

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In a move to protect their right to pursue individual and class action pay and promotion claims against Wal-Mart Stores  more than 500 former and current Wal-Mart women employees who had been part of a national class action lawsuit have filed a charge of discrimination against the retailer with the U.S. Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as of Friday, Jan. 27.

That was the deadline for women in five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina – to pursue their claims, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys Joseph Sellers, Cohen Milstein Sellers& Toll PLLC, and Brad Seligman, the Impact Fund, who represent the women.

The vast majority of the EEOC charges – some 430 – were filed in those states since the June 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing a lower court ruling certifying class action against Wal-Mart. Women in all other states who previously filed class action claims against Wal-Mart, and its subsidiary Sam’s Club, have until May 25, 2012, to file a claim with the EEOC.

“The Supreme Court did not give Wal-Mart a free pass to discriminate.  Filing an EEOC claim is one more way current and former women employees of Wal-Mart can assert their rights,” Sellers and Seligman said in a statement.  More than 12,000 women have contacted plaintiffs’ counsel directly or through the informational website, www.walmartclass.com, to discuss pursuing claims of gender-based pay and promotion discrimination.

Even in the five states with the Jan. 27, 2012, filing deadline, women with pay and promotion discrimination charges against Wal-Mart from July 2011-on can file EEOC claims against the company.

“These EEOC charges are just the down-payment—we expect to file thousands of additional charges by the May 25, 2012 deadline.  We urge women throughout the country who feel they have been discriminated against by Wal-Mart in pay and promotions to log onto the www.walmartclass.com site and register,” said Seligman.

Regional class action lawsuits on behalf of women plaintiffs who worked in California and Texas region Wal-Mart stores were filed in federal courts in those states in October 2011.  An expanded class action was filed in Texas federal court in January 2012.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/walmartcorporate/

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Nearly one in four American children attend rural schools and enrollment is growing at a faster rate in rural school districts than in all other places combined, according to ‘Why Rural Matters 2011-12’, a biennial report by the Rural School and Community Trust.   In addition, rural schools show increasing rates of poverty, diversity, and students with special needs.

These widespread trends are most evident in the South, Southwest, and parts of Appalachia. ”As the evidence mounts that rural education is becoming a bigger and even more complex part of our national educational landscape, it is becoming impossible to ignore in the quest to improve achievement and narrow achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged groups.

The day of closing our eyes and hoping rural education will just go away are ending,” said Jerry Johnson, a co-author of ‘Why Rural Matters 2011-12’. More than 9.6 million students are enrolled in rural school districts in the United States, which is over 20 percent of all public school students in the United States.

An additional 1.8 million students are enrolled in rural schools in districts not classified as rural by the federal government.  Together, these 11.4 million students who attend rural schools comprise more than 23 percent of all public school students, according to the Rural School and Community Trust, a respected national nonprofit organization.

Of those students attending schools in a rural district, two in five live in poverty, a rate that has increased by nearly a third in nine years.  One student in four in rural areas is a child of color, and one in eight has changed residence in the past 12 months.

Between the 1999-2000 and 2008-2009 school years, rural districts’ enrollment increased by well over 1.7 million students, showing a growth rate of more than 22 percent.  In comparison, non-rural enrollment increased by only 673,000, or by a 1.7 percent increase, for the same time period.  As a result, the rural districts’ share of national public school enrollment increased from 17.4 percent to 20 percent over the decade, according to federal data in the report.

These enrollment gains were particularly strong in the most rural states in the South and Southwest.  Ten states are among the top 13 in both the number and the percentage of rural enrollment growth — Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

The top five states with rural enrollment increases — Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arizona — had a total gain of over 1.1 million, more than half the gain for all states that gained rural enrollment.

“Rural minority students are concentrated in certain states, and that concentration is increasing,” said Jerry Johnson. Over 69 percent of all rural minority students now attend school in states where they represent more than one third of the rural student enrollment.  That is up from 58 percent as reported in ‘Why Rural Matters 2009’.

The report uses 25 statistical indicators grouped into five “gauges” to take the measure of rural education in each of the 50 states.  The five gauges are then combined to produce a “rural education priority” gauge.  The higher the ranking, the more important and challenging rural education is in a state’s overall education system and the more urgent it is for policy makers to pay attention to it.

The 13 highest priority states are all in the South, Southwest, and Appalachia, except Alaska, and all, but three, of the 12 next highest priority states are adjacent to them with the exception of Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The report notes that rural education ranks high in importance in many Northern states, including Iowa, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, and Vermont.  However, these states tend to rank low on other measures such as student poverty, diversity, or poor student performance and low graduation rates.

“These states symbolize rural education to many people. They are the basis for a myth that all of rural America is uncomplicated, stable, and reasonably well-off. That myth is part of what keeps rural education on the margins of the national debate about education policy,” said Marty Strange, the policy director for the Rural School and Community Trust and co-author of the report.

“But these classic Yankee and Prairie-Plains states are simply an important part of a much more varied, complex, and challenging rural America that education policy makers must better understand,” said Strange. The report found that states most responsive to rural schools have above average fiscal capacity.

For example, the report points out that of the 13 states with the lowest expenditures for rural teachers, all but Nebraska and South Dakota are below the national average in state fiscal capacity.  On the other hand, states with the highest rural teacher salaries are primarily in the Northeast, the West, and the Mid-Atlantic. All these states are above the national average in state fiscal capacity per capital.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement tapped into anger about bank bailouts, crony capitalism and corporate welfare, but it turns out that most Americans are mad at the federal government and not their banks. A new Reason-Rupe Poll finds 76 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of their banks and just 15 percent view them unfavorably.

In contrast, only 32 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the federal government. Sixty-two percent of voters rate the federal government unfavorably.

Forty-nine percent of Americans approve of the job President Obama is doing, with 47 percent disapproving. Only 13 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, 80 percent disapprove.

Fifty-four percent of Americans also say they are more worried that the federal government will do something to make the economy worse, while 40 percent are more worried that the government will fail to take action on the economy.

State governments are more popular than the feds, but only half of all Americans view them positively. As you get closer to home, 58 percent of Americans have positive views of their local governments, and the same number look upon their local school districts favorably.

The survey finds people feel a lot better about private businesses. For example, 88 percent of Americans have a positive view of their grocery stores; 73 percent look favorably upon their cell phone makers; and 69 percent say they view their Internet service providers favorably.

If Ron Paul does not win the Republican presidential nomination, he is the best positioned candidate to make a third-party or independent run, according to the Reason-Rupe poll. Thirty-four percent of Americans say they would consider voting for Paul if he ran as an independent or third-party presidential candidate.

A similar number, 31 percent, say they would consider voting for New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, if he made an independent run for the White House in 2012.

Sarah Palin said it is “not too late for folks to jump in” to the presidential race. If Palin left the Republican Party and ran as an independent, 27 percent of voters say they might vote for her. The problem for Palin: 67 percent of Americans would not consider voting for her in that scenario.

It has been reported that former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is considering running as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate. Twenty-one percent of voters say they’d consider voting for Johnson, while 29 percent say they do not know enough about him yet.

In terms of the 2012 presidential election, 29 percent of Americans say they will definitely vote for President Obama next November and 44 percent say they will not vote for him.

In a memorable Republican presidential debate moment last month, Texas Governor Rick Perry could not remember the third government agency he would eliminate if elected president.  And another GOP candidate, Ron Paul, says if he is elected he will get rid of five federal agencies: Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior.

So which federal agencies are the American people most willing to eliminate or consolidate? Forty-five percent of Americans are ready to eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development and 41 percent would eliminate the Department of Energy.

The Department of Education was on both Paul’s and Perry’s lists to cut, but 61 percent of Americans want to keep the Department of Education and just 34 percent say eliminate it.

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Catholic hospitals in Australia recently apologized for forced adoptions that took place in Australia decades ago.

Thousands of children were taken away from their unmarried mothers and were given to other married couples. The practice of adopting out newborns to other families was common from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Martin Laverty, the Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Health Australia has apologized for the forced adoptions that took place in Australia’s Catholic hospitals in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

The apology was calculated to “speed up the federal government into action,” said Laverty, as he apologized for the forced adoptions. He continued to say that there is a need to create a national program in order to help all the mothers and children who were harmed by forced adoptions.

In a report by CatholicCulture.org, Laverty also said, “we now know that there were many hospitals across Australia.”According to calculations, more than 150,000 Australian babies were separated from their mothers.Laverty expressed his sadness and referred to this period as a “shameful and regretful time” in Australia’s healthcare history.

“It’s with a deep sense of regret, a deep sense of sorrow that practices of the past have caused ongoing pain, suffering and grief to these women, these brave women in Newcastle but also women around Australia,” he said.

The apology comes in the wake of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation investigation into claims of abuse and trauma in Newcastle, New South Wales.

Due to the importance of the issue, Laverty made a written submission for a national inquiry into what role the federal government had in such adoption policies. The chief executive officer said that the federal government should establish a national program funded by state governments, which have primary responsibility for Australia’s adoption laws.

The program should help to establish “a fund for remedying established wrongs” in addition to help all the families reunite by finding the medical records.

In the words of a psychiatrist who has been treating some of the women affected told the program, it seems as though this had happened in a “totalitarian country somewhere hundreds of years ago.” But these forced adoptions happened only 30 to 40 years ago and will stigmatize Australia’s history.

There are many testimonies from mothers who lost their children from the 1950s to 1970s. The unease and the pain are so strong for all victims and the trauma won’t be easily healed.

Sixteen-year old, Juliette Clough, lost her baby boy shortly after his birth in a Catholic-run hospital in Newcastle in 1970. She still remembers her ankles being strapped to the bed and being gassed.

She said, “they just snatched away the baby” according to an Australian Associated Press report in the Sydney Morning Herald. She wasn’t allowed to see him, hug him or touch him.

“It was just like a piece of my soul had died, and it’s still dead,” Clough said.

She thinks about her son constantly. He would be 42 years old now and she wonders what his life is like, whether he has children and a family and if she has grandchildren. Clough has made a statement for a Senate inquiry into forced adoptions.

The enquiry, officially titled the “Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices”, was set up late last year and was due to report at the end of June 2011 but, because of “the large volume of evidence and the complexity of issues”, this has now been extended until 21 November 2011. The Community Affairs References Committee said in the meantime they will “continue to welcome evidence from new submitters”.

As Laverty said, he and his organization learned about the women’s experiences for first time this June. In a submission to the committee of inquiry he said they were “genuinely sorry” for the “pain that arises from practices of the past.”

Clough, although she has married and given birth again says that the traumatic experience marked her in a strong way. The memories from her first baby taken from her have prevented her bonding properly with her other children.

She suffers from depression and she finds it very difficult to be the mother she wanted to be. There are many more stories like Clough’s. It will take time until everything will be in the public eye.

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