Bebé robado
Bebé robado (German: robbed babies ) describes the victims of the systematic robbery of newborns in Spain up to the 1990s. In the time of the Franco - Fascism is established one of the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions partly based practice to withdraw newborns immediately after birth their biological mothers and to sell to system-abiding families. Their origins have been veiled. The process of coming to terms with these decades-long crimes only began in Spain in the 2000s.
background
The regime of ultra-Catholic Franquism encouraged the criminal baby trade. As early as the 1930s and 1940s, Spanish Falangists took their children from republican women in prisons and gave them to families loyal to the regime. In the 1960s and 1970s, journalists Montserrat Armengou and Ricard Belis observed that the motive of the perpetrators changed: from political to "moral" repression. The perpetrators of the systematic child robbery were all very well networked with the elites of Franquist Spain. The institutions of the Roman Catholic Church, the military and Opus Dei , which are largely immune to criminal prosecution, were essential for the kidnapping of children.
In Fascist-Falangist Spain, large families were more respected than childless couples. Single mothers were rare and had social stigma on them . Under Spanish law, an unmarried woman did not come of age until she was 26 years old. Another favorable circumstance was the Ley de Parto Anόnimo , the law on anonymous birth. The law was supposed to protect unmarried mothers from social stigmatization. The law greatly encouraged systematic child trafficking on a large scale. The law was only changed in Spain in 1997.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the formerly fascist-ultra-Catholic scheme developed into a lucrative human trafficking for the perpetrators .
practice
The robbery of newborns in Spanish hospitals followed the same pattern over and over again. After the birth in the hospital, the mother was told her child was dead. If she had doubts about the death of her child shortly after delivery, she was shown a dead infant. This child's body was kept in a freezer as "evidence" in the San Ramón hospital in Madrid and was thawed again and again. The future adoptive mother was already waiting in a side room of the clinic. Many of the adoptive mothers were led to believe that the birth mother wanted the adoption. The doctor formally entered the adoptive parents directly on the birth certificate, which means that no actual adoption had taken place. Most of the adoptive parents came from other regions of Spain, which should make the subsequent investigation more difficult.
The decades-long practice of the Madrid gynecologist Eduardo Vela at the San Ramon Clinic became particularly well known in the media. In 1981, according to the Ley de Parto Anόnimo, "mother unknown" was stated in 70 percent of the births documented in the clinic. Although cases of kidnapped newborn babies have been documented across Spain, most illegal adoptions took place in Madrid, the Basque Country , Catalonia and Andalusia , according to ANADIR .
Major participants in the mafia structures were Roman Catholic clergymen and women religious , lawyers , midwives , nurses and doctors . The highest known amount paid for an infant was three million pesetas (about 18,000 euros ).
Case numbers
Official numbers of newborn babies withdrawn illegally or under pressure from their mothers do not exist. By 2012, 2000 victims of forced adoptions came together in the ANADIR organization.
Work-up
It was not until the 2010s that the scale and criminal structure of the newborn trafficking became apparent. Those affected founded the victims' organization Associaciόn Nacional de Afectados por las Adopciones Irregulares ( ANADIR ). With modern methods of DNA tests it is now possible to clearly clarify whether the possible victims are the birth parents. Research in the archives of hospitals and Roman Catholic dormitories for single women proved difficult. Several investigations were closed by Spanish public prosecutors because of the statute of limitations.
In 2011, ANADIR filed a class action suit of 262 cases with the prosecutor in Madrid. In April 2012 a trial began for the first time in Madrid against the nun Maria Gómez Valbuena for child abduction.
The Austrian composer Christian Kolonovits processed the theme in his opera El Juez , which premiered in 2014 .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn
- ↑ Katya Adler, BBC (2011): Spain's stolen babies and the families who lived a lie. October 18, 2011; https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15335899
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn
- ↑ Laura Daniele, ABC.es (2019): La mujer que logró llevar a la Justicia el primer caso de bebé robado “no fue robada”. July 11, 2019; https://www.abc.es/sociedad/abci-primera-mujer-logro-llevar-justicia-caso-bebe-robado-encuentra-familia-biologica-201907111145_noticia.html
- ↑ Evangelisch.de (2012): The robbed son. November 8, 2012, https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/40741/08-11-2012/der-geraubte-sohn