Julia Gillard makes apology for Australia's forced adoptions shame

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, delivered a historic national apology in parliament to the thousands of unwed mothers who were forced by government policies to give up their babies for adoption over several decades.

A national apology was recommended a year ago by a senate committee that investigated the impact of the now-discredited policies.

Unwed mothers were pressured, deceived and threatened into giving up their babies from the Second World War until the early 1970s so they could be adopted by married couples.