Tamar was a

maternity home A maternity home, or maternity housing program, is a form of supportive housing provided to pregnant women. Maternity housing programs support a woman in need of a stable home environment to reach her goals in a variety of areas including educatio ...

for unmarried mothers and their children located in the Belgian city of

Lommel Lommel () is a municipality and city in the Belgian province of Limburg. Lying in the Kempen, it has about 34,000 inhabitants and is part of the arrondissement of Maaseik. Besides the residential town, Lommel also has a number of nature reserv ...

, run by the Congregation of Kindsheid Jesu. It was established in 1970 on the attic of the Maria Middelares Hospital and moved in 1976 to its own building next to the hospital. Tamar was established to help young women who where pregnant out of wedlock. Tamar became notorious for its involvement in forced adoptions forced adoptions and unwanted sterilizations of young girls. Tamar operated during a period in Belgium when adoption practices were often shrouded in secrecy and church-run institutions held significant influence over many aspects of society. One of the aspects of Tamar’s operations was the involvement in anonymous births in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, known as Sous X (literally "under X"), a practice that was legal in France but prohibited in Belgium. Many young women, often teenagers, were forced to travel to France to give birth anonymously. Afterward, the children were illegally brought back into Belgium and put up for

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...

. This without consent from the mothers.

Political and Legal Consequences

The full extent of the stories about Tamar became increasingly clear after the 2014 hearings in the Flemish Parliament about forced adoptions. During these hearings, the management of Tamar refused to apologize to the victims. Former director Josse Tips defended the adoptions, stating that they were largely carried out "at the request of the parents," a claim that was later contradicted by several testimonies from mothers who had been forced to relinquish their children

Impact on Society and Continued Controversy

The 2023

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

series Kinderen van de kerk (Children of the Church) delves deep into the stories about Tamar and shedding light on the church's influence on adoption practices. In this four-part series, the main accusations center on the belief that the

Sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

at Tamar were involved in "laundering children" as a form of human trafficking. These children, often taken against the will of their mothers, were allegedly placed into adoptions that were profitable for the church-run institutions. The allegations suggest that money played a significant role in these decisions, furthering the idea that the children were treated as commodities. The organisation Tamar ended there operations in 2014.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Website for survivors of the Tamar motherhouse
History of Belgium Forced adoption Catholic Church in Belgium Adoption and religion