Prisoner of the State

At sixteen years old, Lily Arthur was caught between the women’s liberation movement of the ‘swinging sixties and the draconian ideology that young women should be punished for deviating from society's 'moral codes'.

For the 'crime' of being pregnant, Lily was forcibly taken from the man she planned to marry and incarcerated in the notorious Holy Cross Home for ‘wayward’ girls in Wooloowin, Brisbane as a ‘prisoner’ of the state. Lily spent her entire pregnancy performing unpaid labour its infamous Magdalene Laundry.

On 1 September 1967, the terrified teenager was taken to the Royal Brisbane Hospital where she gave birth shackled to a bed, and her newborn son cruelly stolen from her – one of 250,000 babies forcibly seized from vulnerable unmarried mothers under the Government’s illegal forced adoption policies of the era.

After decades of heartache and an emotional reunion with her long-lost son, Lily remains on a crusade to expose the truth behind the crimes a country tried to hide and has taken the fight to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, demanding justice for a generation of women who were victims of one of the worst human rights violations in contemporary Australian history.

‘Only a few mothers led the fight for justice, but an army of women stood behind them. Lily Arthur represents a mother who never gave up her child willingly and fought to make sure he and many other adopted children knows.’ KAREN WILSON-BUTERBAUGH, Director of Origins International and USA

‘Deeply personal and at times very raw insight. It is compelling, powerful, intense, no holes barred narrative. It clearly shows the lifelong impact of the illegal, cruel practices of forced adoption and a mother's fight for justice." SENATOR RACHAEL SIEWERT

‘A heart-breaking view of crimes against humanity. For almost three decades, Lily Arthur details the legalised kidnapping of babies from millions of women in Australia and elsewhere who were brainwashed to comply with society's punishment. Punishment for getting pregnant. The truth of the horrors of adoption laid bare." JOE SOLL LCSW, Psychotherapist, and author of Adoption Healing

© 2025 Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd (Audiobook): 9781004196340

Release date

Audiobook: 24 April 2025