Mother and daughter testify in child-snatching inquiry

Marisa Torres and her 29-year-old daughter, Pilar, with whom she was reunited last year, left a Madrid courtroom in tears on Tuesday. They had just told a judge how a Catholic nun, Sister María Gómez Valbuena, now 80, allegedly stole Pilar soon after birth and sold her on to another family.

"She has done a lot of harm to a lot of families. If she isn't put in jail or punished, then she will be punished in another life," Pilar said.

The case filed against Sister María is the first inquiry to be officially opened by a Spanish judge over the alleged existence of a baby-snatching conspiracy, which may have lasted from as early as the 1940s up until the 1990s at public hospitals around the country. Dozens of complaints have been filed by parents, who claim that they were told their newborns died at birth, when in fact they were adopted by childless families.

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More nuns put under investigation in children-snatching scandal

More nuns from the Daughters of Charity order are under investigation for allegedly taking part in a stolen babies scheme at Madrid hospitals.

Sister María Gómez Valbuena, now 80, was called before a judge on April 13 to answer charges that she stole an infant girl from a mother and gave her to another family in the early 1980s. She is the only person who has been officially charged in the ongoing case, which has now grown to more than 1,500 complaints.

Among the suspects is Sister Juana Alonso, now 97, who served as mother superior of the order at the Daughters of Charity convent in Tenerife from 1951 to 1970.

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Spain's Stolen-Babies Scandal: Empty Graves and a Silent Nun

The elderly woman who left Madrid's courthouse on Thursday morning looked stooped and ghostly, but neither her obvious frailty nor the plain blue habit she wore kept the small crowd of onlookers from screaming at her. "Shameless!" one woman shouted. "How could you cause so much suffering?"

Thursday was supposed to be the day that began to bring resolution to those who believe themselves victims of decades of baby robbing in Spain. The nun called to testify, Sister María Gómez Valbuena, is the first person indicted for her alleged involvement in a scheme that supposedly saw thousands of newborns taken from their mothers and sold to adoptive parents. But once in front of the judge, Gómez Valbuena exercised her right to remain silent. And later that day at a meeting with representatives of victims' associations, Spanish government officials admitted that, although they would dedicate administrative resources to attempting to reunite mothers and children, the chances of bringing to justice those who had separated the families were slim.

Some 1,500 accusations of baby stealing, dating from the late 1950s until the mid-'80s, have been filed in Spain in the past year or two.


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80-year-old Spanish nun faces charges in massive baby-stealing ring

Catholic nun charged with stealing baby in 1980s; angry families say church-sponsored cartel stole babies from poor mothers, sold them into adoption.

An 80-year-old Spanish nun appeared in court Thursday to face charges that she kidnapped an infant girl as part of a vast baby-trafficking ring that stole newborns from poor mothers and sold them into adoption.

Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena appeared before the judge and refused to testify, invoking her right to remain silent, Reuters reported.

The aging Sisters of Charity nun was charged with kidnapping a newborn girl from a Madrid hospital in the 1980s.

A group of more than 1,000 families said she was part of a nationwide baby-snatching ring dating back four decades.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/80-year-old-spanish-nun-faces-charges-massive-baby-stealing-ring-article-1.1060651#ixzz1rw7XVUVE

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

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.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049647/BBC-documentary-exposes-50-year-scandal-baby-trafficking-Catholic-church-Spain.html

Victims of Spanish baby-theft policy demand probe

Victims of a baby-stealing policy approved by Spanish General Francisco Franco's dictatorship have filed a formal demand for an investigation into more than 260 cases.
An association fighting for the stolen children and their families, Anadir, presented the demand at the Madrid attorney general's office with evidence including DNA tests and testimony from nurses who admitted stealing babies.

The demand was made on behalf of the victims and families of 261 snatched babies. Anadir lawyer Enrique Vila said many others are expected to join the complaint.

"We get more and more calls from people who have doubts about their origins, because they have no physical resemblance with their parents or grandparents, or because their parents had them at an advanced age and they are single children," he said.

Anadir estimates there could be as many as 300,000 cases during the 1939-75 dictatorship and up to the end of the 1980s.

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Spanish woman reunited with daughter after 44 years

A Spanish woman has been reunited with the daughter who was stolen from her as a newborn baby 44 years ago.

Manuela Polo is one of hundreds of women who were told their babies died shortly after birth when in fact they were taken and given to childless couples in a stolen baby scandal dating back to the Franco era that has only recently come to light.

The 79-year old from Galicia never fully believed that her seventh child had died shortly after she gave birth in a hospital in La Coruna and after a long search and a DNA test she finally met her daughter last week.

Mrs Polo was told that she had a baby boy and held him only briefly before he was whisked away by doctors who later said he had died. Her husband was shown a tiny coffin meant to contain the corpse.

But the baby, a girl, had been sold to a couple unable to have children of their own. The child was brought up in Valencia with the name Maria Jesus Cebrian, who began the search for her birth mother 12 years ago.

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Adopted or abducted?

Most women describe giving birth to a child as a life changing experience – in a word – “challenging”, “joyous”, “miraculous.” But generations of young, unwed women describe their experience of giving birth to a child as a nightmare – and decades later their suffering has yet to end.

From Australia to Spain, Ireland to America, and as recent as 1987, young mothers say they were “coerced”, “manipulated”, and “duped” into handing over their babies for adoption. These women say sometimes their parents forged consent documents, but more often they say these forced adoptions were coordinated by the people their families trusted most...priests, nuns, social workers, nurses or doctors.

Last month, a Dan Rather Reports producer and crew were in Canberra, Australia as Parliament released the findings of an 18-month-long investigation revealing illegal and unethical tactics used to convince young, unmarried mothers to surrender their babies to adoptive homes from the late 1940s to the 1980s. And we interviewed some of the victims -- adoptees and mothers separated at birth.
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