MADRID/ANDALUCÍA - Over 200 people demonstrated outside the Public Prosecutor's office in Madrid yesterday, demanding that the Public Prosecutor investigate a growing number of cases involving stolen, or irregularly adopted babies that occurred all over Spain from the 1950s. A class action suit was filed for the purpose. Many of those present are looking for parents and siblings they had no knowledge of until these cases began to surface a couple of years ago. "There will be many more cases joining the suit," says lawyer Enrique Vila, who is helping the national organization Asociación Nacional de Afectados de Adopciones Irregulares (Anadir). "At present, most cases happened in Madrid, but there are many in Andalucía and Cataluña. It happened in every region, with almost the same system: telling the mother that her newborn had died, finding buyers (for the children), payment, registration as their (the 'adopters') own children, fake pregnancies, etc.">
The lawsuit argues that there are plenty of indications that human traffic ocurred, as well as falsifying public documents, supposition of birth (alleging that there was a live birth), kidnapping and illegal detention. Supposedly, none of these crimes expire in Spanish law.
Included in the documents attached to the lawsuit are testimonials from people involved in the alleged crimes. One of them is from a nurse who worked at the Clínica San Ramón in Madrid, who says that the sale of children was commonplace there; a funeral director from Málaga tells how he filled little coffins that arrived empty from the maternity units. One woman confesses to having bought a child at a park in Melilla in 1979, and another says she was told to pretend to be pregnant before she was given a baby.
"Prices ranged from 50,000 pesetas to a million," adds Vila. "It is true that these cases started when the babies of Republican babies were removed from their mothers during the Civil War and shortly afterwards. Maybe 30,000 cases, according to Judge Baltasar Garzón that could be classified as political'purifying'.But we believe that there may be some 300,000 cases because it continued for many years as a busines pure and simple."
Most of the cases involved in th suit are from the late 1970s. The law changed in 1987 but until then, the administration had very little control over adoptions. This gave the medical staff or the nuns and priests who often ran the hospitals in those days, every opportunity to make money on the sale of babies, often from illiterate or semi-illiterate mothers.
Antonio Barroso, president of Anadir, says that his organization wants to find the truth. "Stolen children are looking for their mothers, mothers for the children they were told had died," adds Barroso. "If crimes were committed, then we want those responsible to be tried."
"If the Public Prosecutor, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, says these crimes have expired, we will go to the European Court of Human Rights," adds attorney Enrique Vila.
The lawsuit argues that there are plenty of indications that human traffic ocurred, as well as falsifying public documents, supposition of birth (alleging that there was a live birth), kidnapping and illegal detention. Supposedly, none of these crimes expire in Spanish law.
Included in the documents attached to the lawsuit are testimonials from people involved in the alleged crimes. One of them is from a nurse who worked at the Clínica San Ramón in Madrid, who says that the sale of children was commonplace there; a funeral director from Málaga tells how he filled little coffins that arrived empty from the maternity units. One woman confesses to having bought a child at a park in Melilla in 1979, and another says she was told to pretend to be pregnant before she was given a baby.
"Prices ranged from 50,000 pesetas to a million," adds Vila. "It is true that these cases started when the babies of Republican babies were removed from their mothers during the Civil War and shortly afterwards. Maybe 30,000 cases, according to Judge Baltasar Garzón that could be classified as political'purifying'.But we believe that there may be some 300,000 cases because it continued for many years as a busines pure and simple."
Most of the cases involved in th suit are from the late 1970s. The law changed in 1987 but until then, the administration had very little control over adoptions. This gave the medical staff or the nuns and priests who often ran the hospitals in those days, every opportunity to make money on the sale of babies, often from illiterate or semi-illiterate mothers.
Antonio Barroso, president of Anadir, says that his organization wants to find the truth. "Stolen children are looking for their mothers, mothers for the children they were told had died," adds Barroso. "If crimes were committed, then we want those responsible to be tried."
"If the Public Prosecutor, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, says these crimes have expired, we will go to the European Court of Human Rights," adds attorney Enrique Vila.
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