The upcoming referendum on the family will form “part of the reparation process” for single mothers and their children, the chief executive of One Family has said.

Voters are being asked to amend the definition of the family, from being based on marriage, to being founded on marriage “or on other durable relationships”.

At the unveiling of its campaign, Karen Kiernan, chief executive of the organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating, highlighted the suffering of women who “could not keep and raise their own children” and were “incarcerated” in mother and baby homes” where they were “sometimes forced into the adoption of their children, where they were shamed, mistreated and punished”.

Ms Kiernan said although there was now broad acceptance that their mistreatment was “very wrong” the vote on broadening the definition of the family in the referendum could be “part of this reparation process for what was done to the children and their parents”.