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Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo

From 1976 to 1983, during the Dirty War, the military junta in Argentina, military and security forces and right-wing death squads hunted down political dissidents. The number of kidnapped and missing people (“desaparecidos”) is somewhere between 10,000 (official estimate) and 30,000 (estimate of the “Madres de Plaza de Mayo” organization). Most of these people are presumed dead.

Abuelas
Abuelas

An estimated 500 of the missing are the children who were born in captivity to pregnant “disappeared” women or “disappeared/kidnapped” together with their parents as toddlers. It is believed that many of these babies were given up for illegal adoption to military families and others associated with the regime.

Since 1977, an NGO called Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (“Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo”) has been searching for those children so that they can be reunited with their surviving biological families.

At the moment, the organization is chaired by Estela de Carlotto and has its headquarters in Buenos Aires and subsidiaries in Mar del Plata, La Plata, Rosario and Córdoba.

So far, the Organization had restored the identity of 130 people. Check out their excellent website with detailed stories of each and every “grandchild” that was kidnapped with their parents or born in captivity and finally identified.

They have been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize.