Clandestine Births:
Appropriation of Minors
Despite their condition, the activist women who were pregnant at the time of their kidnapping by the Armed and Security Forces were also subjected to torture.
These women were held captive, and many times the births occurred under inhumane conditions within the Clandestine Detention Centers themselves. In the majority of these cases, after giving birth the women were disappeared and their children were delivered into the hands of military officers or civilians related to members of the Armed Forces. This would not have been possible without the participation of doctors and nurses, who constituted part of this system of appropriation and disappearance.
In 2012, the existence of a systematic and generalized practice of theft, detainment, and concealment of minors during the period of State Terrorism was proven in court. The disappeared children were deprived of their identity, freedom, right to live with their families, and all internationally recognized rights. The daughters and sons of the detained and disappeared were considered “plunder,” and their appropriation was part of the intent to erase every trace of the struggle of a generation.
Since 1977, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo search for their disappeared grandchildren. Some were kidnapped along with their parents, while others were born in captivity in the Clandestine Detention Centers, where they were ripped from the arms of their mothers. In the beginning, the grandmothers alternated between performing detective activities on daily visits to juvenile courts, orphanages, and public offices, while at the same time investigating the adoptions of that period. They also received information from people across the country about the possible whereabouts of their grandchildren.
On the long road of struggle walked by the Grandmothers all these years, they have succeeded at recovering the histories of 128 grandchildren. They continue searching for 400 young people—today adults—who remain in some way disappeared until their true identities are restored to them.
These women were held captive, and many times the births occurred under inhumane conditions within the Clandestine Detention Centers themselves. In the majority of these cases, after giving birth the women were disappeared and their children were delivered into the hands of military officers or civilians related to members of the Armed Forces. This would not have been possible without the participation of doctors and nurses, who constituted part of this system of appropriation and disappearance.
In 2012, the existence of a systematic and generalized practice of theft, detainment, and concealment of minors during the period of State Terrorism was proven in court. The disappeared children were deprived of their identity, freedom, right to live with their families, and all internationally recognized rights. The daughters and sons of the detained and disappeared were considered “plunder,” and their appropriation was part of the intent to erase every trace of the struggle of a generation.
Since 1977, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo search for their disappeared grandchildren. Some were kidnapped along with their parents, while others were born in captivity in the Clandestine Detention Centers, where they were ripped from the arms of their mothers. In the beginning, the grandmothers alternated between performing detective activities on daily visits to juvenile courts, orphanages, and public offices, while at the same time investigating the adoptions of that period. They also received information from people across the country about the possible whereabouts of their grandchildren.
On the long road of struggle walked by the Grandmothers all these years, they have succeeded at recovering the histories of 128 grandchildren. They continue searching for 400 young people—today adults—who remain in some way disappeared until their true identities are restored to them.