[LINK] "Children Stolen by Chilean Dictatorship Finally Come to Light"

[rfmcdonald]

The Inter Press Service's Marianela Jarroud reports on how in Chile, young people today are growing up to discover that they were abducted from their disappeared parents by the Pinochet dictatorship. Argentina, as Jarroud notes, engaged with this at a much earlier date than its neighbour.

The suspicion that babies of people detained and disappeared during Chile’s 1973-1990 dictatorship were stolen is growing stronger in Chile, a country that up to now has not paid much attention to the phenomenon.

“There has always been a suspicion that something similar to what happened in Argentina also occurred in Chile, and that many women who were pregnant when they were detained actually gave birth in detention centres,” a 70-year-old woman who asked to be identified simply as Carmen told IPS.

“No one dug into that issue much back then, because we were afraid, and nobody would have listened to us,” she added.

[. . .].

According to the official investigation, 40,000 people were tortured during the 17-year military dictatorship, and 3,095 of them were killed, 1,000 of whom are still disappeared.

It has been confirmed that at least 10 women were pregnant when they were detained and disappeared. They were between the ages of 26 and 29, and were three to eight months pregnant.