Spain has a dirty secret that has finally been exposed and investigated: over the course of five decades the country’s government, in collaboration with the doctors and nurses and the Catholic Church, stole new born babies from families regarded as unfit in order to sell them to apparently more deserving families.
This shocking practice started under the dictatorship of General Franco but continued after he was toppled. The discovery was made by chance recently when a father made a confession on his deathbed to his son, aged 38. The son went to the press with his story after it emerged that his best friend had also been stolen and adopted and now the prudent estimated number of stolen babies stands at 300,000!
It is truly sinister that the Spain’s medical profession disregarded ethics on such a scale and the Catholic Church is involved in yet another scandal involving child abuse albeit of another kind. It is also sad that the current Spanish government has not been forthcoming in managing the process of DNA testing and investigations to reunite families. BBC2 is running a documentary on the story this Tuesday at 9pm but I listened to some Spanish women explaining their life-long ordeal on BBC Radio 4. Under Franco’s rule they were in no position to be able to question any authority, they were not allowed to see the baby’s body or be present at the burial. Many of them spent their life on medication believing that they were insane for thinking their child was alive.
Could it happen again in the UK or any other country?
Bubbly
The Chatterjis Blog 
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