Forced disappearances of children

In Argentina between 1976 and 1983 under the military dictatorship hundreds of children disappeared. Most of these children had been born or were presumed to have been born of mothers who were themselves missing and reportedly held in secret detention centres at the time of their delivery. Military did not want the children of "subversive elements" to be returned to their families lest they grew up in the same moral and political climate as their parents. In some cases children were executed and their remains hidden. On the other hand, appropriations had been carried out systematically by some members of military. Many of the children found after their parents' disappearance were abandoned, or left in hospitals or orphanages, in the hands of neighbours, given to adoptive parents who either knew the circumstances or was one of the captors or handed over to their grandparents.