300,000 babies stolen from their parents - and sold for adoption
Haunting BBC documentary exposes 50-year scandal of baby
trafficking by the Catholic church in Spain
UPDATED: 06:55 EDT, 16 October 2011
"Up to 300,000 Spanish babies were stolen from their parents and sold for adoption over a period of five decades, a new investigation reveals.
The children were trafficked by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns in a widespread practice that began during General Franco’s dictatorship and continued until the early Nineties.
Hundreds of families who had babies taken from Spanish hospitals are now battling for an official government investigation into the scandal.
Several mothers say they were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth.
But the women, often young and unmarried, were told they could not see the body of the infant or attend their burial.
In reality, the babies were sold to childless couples whose devout beliefs and financial security meant that they were seen as more appropriate parents.
Official documents were forged so the adoptive parents’ names were on the infants’ birth certificates.
In many cases it is believed they were unaware that the child they received had been stolen, as they were usually told the birth mother had given them up.
Journalist Katya Adler, who has investigated the scandal, says: ‘The situation is incredibly sad for thousands of people.
‘There are men and women across Spain whose lives have been turned upside-down by discovering the people they thought were their parents actually bought them for cash. There are also many mothers who have maintained for years that their babies did not die – and were labelled “hysterical” – but are now discovering that their child has probably been alive and brought up by somebody else all this time.’
Experts believe the cases may account for up to 15 per cent of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989.
It began as a system for taking children away from families deemed politically dangerous to the regime of General Franco, which began in 1939. The system continued after the dictator’s death in 1975 as the Catholic church continued to retain a powerful influence on public life, particularly in social services.
It was not until 1987 that the Spanish government, instead of hospitals, began to regulate adoptions.
The scandal came to light after two men, Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, discovered they had been stolen as babies.
Mr Moreno’s ‘father’ confessed on his deathbed to having bought him as a baby from a priest in Zaragoza in northern Spain. He told his son he had been accompanied on the trip by Mr Barroso’s parents, who bought Antonio at the same time for 200,000 pesetas – a huge sum at the time.
‘That was the price of an apartment back then,’ Mr Barroso said. ‘My parents paid it in instalments over the course of ten years because they did not have enough money.’"
MOAR THAN MOST CAN HANDLE:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049647/BBC-documentary-exposes-50-year-scandal-baby-trafficking-Catholic-church-Spain.html
NEVER GETS OLD
THEY GAVE THEM DEAD BABIES ANON
THEY TOLD THEM THIS IS YOUR DEAD BABY
AND THEY STOLE THEIR BABIES AND SOLD THEM
DO NOT TURN AWAY!
MOST PUBLIC CRIME IS BUT THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
THIS IS JUST 50 YEARS IN ONE COUNTRY ANON
IMAGINE THE REALITY
THEIR ARE PEOPLE HERE RIGHT NOW
WHOSE ONLY PURPOSE IS TO OBSTRUCT THIS JUSTICE
STRIKE THEM DOWN LORD