If you were worried that historical atrocities might lose their punch over time, fear not: the new documentary Stolen Babies is here to remind you that institutional cruelty has a remarkable staying power. The 90-minute film, as unsparing as it is unsentimental, opens with a statistic so bald it practically needs a hat: between 1949 and 1976, over 250,000 unmarried mothers in the UK were forced to hand over their newborns for adoption. That's a quarter of a million human stories, and the state, religious institutions, self-proclaimed moral welfare societies, and the NHS were all too happy to facilitate every step.

The numbers are appalling, but the details are worse. The film tells the stories of women who were banished to mother and baby homes - institutions that ran on a mix of moral superiority and questionable record-keeping. One report on the 'inmates' sniffed that 'they do not quickly acknowledge themselves as sinners,' which is a bit rich coming from an institution that would later be accused of, well, stealing babies. Joan Chambers was 14 when a teacher took her for a walk in the woods. 'I trusted him, I really did,' she says. 'All I remember was the pain. I honestly didn't know what was happening.'

And in case you thought the cruelty was merely psychological, consider this: many mothers were denied pain relief during labour, allegedly so they would 'not be a bad girl again.' Because nothing says moral rehabilitation like excruciating physical pain. The documentary lets these women speak, and their testimony is as harrowing as it is essential. Stolen Babies is a stark reminder that the past isn't just another country - it's one with a truly terrible record on reproductive justice.