Chile’s Children of Silence: Uncovering the Truth

Transnational adoption can be traced back to the post war period whereby adoption was utilized as a means to help abandoned children. The magnitude of this phenomenon is difficult to assess given the lack of official records in the countries which send and receive children. This was especially a problem in Chile and the Latin American countries wherein the laws regulating adoption were not firmly established till late 1988. The enormity of displacement due to the extent of such transnational adoptions from Chile to different countries is especially difficult to comprehend given the dictatorial regime in place at the time of such peak occurrences during the 1970s to 1980s. These events of irregular and illegal adoptions were kept hidden and may have partially been related to enhancing political ties between Chile and the other countries. The problem was more recently uncovered starting in 2014 wherein multiple reports of missing Chilean children started permeating the press. The emotional trauma and apprehension of not knowing one’s biological parents can only be fathomed by the people affected. In this article, I try to analyze the circumstances leading up to the events, the key players and what actually transpired leading to the missing children of Chile utilizing the reports and available literature relating to this topic.