Secretive Christian sect coerced young mothers to give up babies
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Women who were once members of a secretive Christian sect in the United States have told the BBC they were coerced by the church into giving up their children for adoption.
Hundreds of adoptions could have taken place between the 1950s and 1990s, say former members.
Some of the children who were adopted within the church have told us they were then subjected to abuse and neglect in their adoptive families.
The claims follow a BBC investigation last year into allegations of child sexual abuse spanning decades within the church, which is believed to have up to 100,000 members worldwide and is often referred to as The Truth or the Two by Twos. The FBI has since launched an investigation.
Four women – who were all unmarried at the time – have told us they were given no option but to give up their babies. Three of them feared being cast out of the church and sent to hell if they refused.
One says she was pressured into giving her baby to a married couple in the church after she was raped in 1988, age 17.
“My fear of going to hell was so great that it forced me to make up my mind to give up the baby to this couple in the church,” she told the BBC.
Another says she wasn’t allowed to see her baby daughter before the child was taken away forever.
The BBC has also spoken to six people given up for adoption as babies between the 1960s and 1980s. One woman says she was physically and emotionally abused in her first adoptive family in the church, and sexually abused in the second.
Content retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d5x83gg45o.
