State 'abducted my son at birth'

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard has apologised on behalf of the nation to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the practice of forced adoption, which ran in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

She made the apology in the national parliament before an audience that included many of those affected.

Speaking to the Today programme's Sarah Montague, Lily Arthur, one of those women and co-chair of the National Stolen Generation Alliance and Origins, a charity supporting people separated by adoption, explained that she still does not "understand why people thought they could walk in to people's homes and abduct them, after not having committed any crime... and steal their children at birth from them".

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday 21 March 2013.