ONE NATION 50 YEARS > 300,000 BABIES > SILENCE
NOT FRANCIS, NOR BENEDICT…
NOT POPULAR
NOT FINANCED
NOT FILMED
NOT RELEASED
ZERO CONVICTIONS
The only person convicted for the theft and sale of approx. 300,000 babies in Spain over 50 years was one of the victims. Convicted of Slandering a Nun.
The ‘stolen babies’ trial in Spain finally shines a light on a scandal that cannot be forgotten
Published: July 13, 2018 8.18am EDT
It is June 6 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 that 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.
https://theconversation.com/the-stolen-babies-trial-in-spain-finally-shines-a-light-on-a-scandal-that-cannot-be-forgotten-99860