Women who used to be members of the secret Christian sects in the United States told the BBC that the Church forced to give up their children for adoption.
Hundreds of adoption could happen between the 1950s and 1990s, former members say.
Some of the children adopted in the church told us that they were then undergoing abuse and neglect in their adoptive parents.
Claims follow BBC investigation last year In the allegations of sexual abuse of children who extend for decades within the Church, which is believed to have up to 100,000 members around the world, and often calls them truth or two. FBI has since launched an investigation.
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Four women – who were unmarried at the time – told us that they did not get the opportunity but to give up their babies. The three were afraid of being kicked out of the church and sent to hell if they refused.
One says it was pressed that the child gave a married couple in the church after being raped in 1988, 17 years.
“My fear of going to hell was so great that he forced me to decide to give up my child to give up this couple in the church,” the BBC said.
Another says she was not allowed to see her daughter before the baby was forever taken.
The BBC also spoke with six people who gave up adoption as a baby between the 1960s and 1980s. One woman says she was physically and emotionally abused in her first adoptive parent in the church, and in the other sexually abused.
Adopted children – born in the whole US -in – are called “Baldwin babies” in the church, because the adoption was supervised by Wally Baldwin, a sect doctor who died in 2004.
Some women would stay home in Oregon during pregnancy, according to a minister who worked with Dr. Baldwin.
The exact number of Baldwin Baby is not clear. The BBC spoke with the late doctor adopted son, Gary Baldwin, who said that original records were no longer available, but believed that the number was “less than 200”.
He said that the “inevitable” mistake made his father’s check system, but that his intentions were good. The others we talked to also said they were loved by Dr. Baldwin.
Since the truth has no official leader, the BBC instead contacted six of its highest current officials – known as “supervisors” – for comment. We received one answer. The supervisor told us any adoption that was aware that they had been done “legal channels” and “heard some beautiful stories.”
One woman who was adopted recalled that she saw hundreds of photos on Dr. Baldwin’s album would retain children whose adoption he organized in truth.
Another man who was adopted told us that he was personally associated with more than 100 babies Baldwin and mothers.
The church, founded in Ireland by the Scottish Evangelist in 1897, was built around ministers – known as workers – spreading new Testament teachings through an oral word.
Most of the mothers who have said BBC say that the workers – and the truth as an institution – should take over most responsibilities for trauma caused by adoption.
‘If I keep this baby, I’m going to hell’
“Somewhere the church has drawn out of the way and has become a cult based on fear and I was forced to decide,” says Melanie Williams, 62, who gave up her child for adoption in January 1981.
In 18 years, Melanie became pregnant after “crazy in love” with a boy from her school.
Not only is the couple unmarried, but the father was not a member of the truth and refused to become one. This meant that Melanie had committed a “terrible sin” in the eyes of local workers.
Workers and her family decided that she could continue to attend church meetings only if she gave birth to a child to another family in a sect.
“If I keep this baby, I’m going to hell. If I keep my baby, I can’t go home,” Melanie remembers thinking.
She was born at a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma, where she was discreetly put into the room alone.
He remembers the doctor shouted him when she started crying during childbirth.
Melani’s child pushed away before she sounded and says she didn’t know if she had a girlfriend or boy.
The new mother left to wonder if her child could have been dead.
When she eventually learned that the baby was alive, she told the nurse to howling if she would go with adoption and wanted to keep her baby.
“You can never hold your baby,” the answer came.
Years later, Melanie was able to find her daughter – but she didn’t want to meet.
Deb Adadjo, 54, was also not sure of giving up his child, but at that time he felt too much pressure to refuse workers, who threatened her to ban her church meetings – which in truth meant that you were not only kicked out from the church, but also ended up in hell.
She became pregnant after being raped in 1988.
Remembering she was holding a newborn baby, she says, “I can still feel her on her chest.”
“In our last moments together, I remember just cuddling with her and told her that I love her and that I’m sorry, over and over,” he adds.
“I had to let her go, I had no opportunity.”
Deb later met his daughter, but they were no longer in regular contact.
Sherlene Eicher, 63, from Iowa, says she never stopped thinking about her daughter, who she felt that her parents had pressure on her to give up in 1982.
She had to hold and feed the newborn briefly before they were separated.
Sherlene would hold a private birthday celebration for her daughter every year.
“If her birthday appeared, I would get her a birthday card and made a cake several times,” she says.
“And I would write a lot – wondering where she is, what she is, what she could go at at the age she was in.”
Then in 2004, Sherlen’s daughter came into contact and met. They are close to this day.
“When we finally met, we just hugged each other and hugged and hugged,” Sherlene says.
“We talk like two or three hours on the phone – she’s a pretty amazing woman.”
Adopted babies left for abuse
Those who were interviewed said the adoption system included very few checks and this set the potential for abuse. They said that when the child was on the road, Dr. Baldwin would contact the workers for the sake of sending, and they would recommend a family in a sect to place the child.
Of the six Baldwin babies who spoke with the BBC, two faced sexual, physical and emotional abuse in her adoptive parents, while one said her adoptive father had undergone emotional abuse.
One woman said that the social service took her from her first adoptive home because of his extreme physical abuse and that she was placed in the House of the Older Church – a person of the elderly station that holds meetings in their own home – and his wife. She said the couple began sexually abusing her within a few weeks when she was 15.
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Another woman said she was beaten daily by her adoptive parents and sexually abused her uncle in her adoptive parents when she was five.
Ever since the reports of widespread sexual abuse of children began to spread within the church two years ago, former and current members have begun to connect in Facebook groups, including Baldwin’s mother and baby.
“Moms – I know how they feel and I have so much empathy for them. I cry for their stories when they write them. But for myself I cried all the tears I can cry,” Deb says.
“It was like finding my tribe,” Melanie says. “I’m not alone anymore.”
“Our moms were afraid of hugging us, ours were ashamed of us, and the Church would only accept us if we made a final sacrifice.”
“And all these years later, we will all be fine.”
