How the 'stolen babies' trial in Spain is scandal that won't be forgottenPart I
As many as 300,000 babies were taken from their families for political gain
Federico Lpez-Terra Thursday 19 July 2018 13:41
It is 6 June 1969 and Spain is living through the final years of Franco’s dictatorship. At a clinic in Madrid, a woman gives birth to a baby girl she will never see again.
Little is known about what happened to the mother – but almost 50 years later, her daughter Inés Madrigal has just given evidence in a shocking trial.
In the dock was Dr Eduardo Vela, an 85-year-old former gynaecologist accused of stealing Inés from her biological mother.
Vela is alleged to have given the baby as a “gift” to a couple, the Madrigals, who were unable to have their own children. He denies the charges.
Despite the cinematic plot, this is not an isolated case. A network of baby trafficking is believed to have involved a vast network of doctors, nurses, nuns and priests.
Although there is no official figure, the SOS Stolen Babies association estimates that as many as 300,000 babies were taken from their parents in Spain between 1939 and the 1990s.
Now 49, Inés Madrigal works for the association and is the first “stolen baby” to successfully take an alleged perpetrator of one of these crimes to court.
The roots of these crimes date back from the origins of Francoism when Spanish fascists were trying to prove eugenic theories of dissidents’ mental inferiority.
It was a thesis defended by the military psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo-Nágera – aka “the Spanish Mengele” – who led Franco’s office of psychological research.
He argued that political beliefs promoted in left-wing families could “intoxicate” children and “damage the mental health of future generations”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/stolen-babies-scandal-in-spain-crime-madrid-hospital-a8449286.html