Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo

Argentina's military regime developed a policy of terror in which the “disappearance” of persons played an important role. Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), a movement established in 1977, is aimed at searching for sons and daughters of the disappeared taken by the military to be sold or dumped at welfare institutions as unidentified people (Jane/John Doe). Abuelas also seeks to restore these people's true identities and to establish the necessary conditions for these events never to happen again, while they demand that the guilty be punished for these crimes.

The association created under the name Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo works at four different levels: reports and claims submitted to governmental, national, and international authorities; recourse to the Judiciary; requests for the society as a whole to support their goals; and the enforcement of the provisos of a Genetic Data Bank under National Bill No. 23511, which contains genetic maps of all families with missing children under the military regime.

Abuelas has made an impressive contribution to the cause of human rights: By developing the tools for determining the probabilities that children raised in other families might be someone else's grandchildren, their search has contributed to the field of individual identification through genetic tools worldwide. The association has also promoted the Right to Identity as a basic right at the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the United Nations and included in Argentina's National Constitution.

Through long years of struggle, the members of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have never ceased to fight for and demand truth and justice; they have insisted on the investigation of all crimes against humanity committed under the military dictatorship and have demanded that those who were responsible for the regime be incarcerated. Between 1997 and 2000, and as a result of their efforts, Jorge Rafael Videla, Eduardo Emilio Massera, Antonio Vañek, Rubén Franco, and Jorge Acosta were convicted for having taken minors from their original families.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Ceferino Landa's conviction in 2001 nullified the Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws and declared that crimes such as the taking of minors, changing of their identities, and disappearance of individuals did not enjoy the benefits of immunity and were to be treated as crimes against humanity.

Over the past few years, Abuelas has begun calling on the young to help the association search for missing grandchildren. This gave rise to an intergenerational encounter that enabled both parties to go deeper into the practices of Abuelas and that, together with other organizations such as Madres (mothers) de Plaza de Mayo, Hijos (sons and daughters), and the recent creation Hermanos (brothers and sisters), has endowed family bonds with a new meaning based on identity, memory, and the pursuit of justice.

Out of the approximate figure of 500 young people who are so far ignorant of their family roots, 82 grandparents have been identified.