Motherhood interrupted: women denouncing the stolen of their children in Argentina

Abstract

Some years ago, in Argentina, a group of women between 50 and 80 years of age began to denounce the theft of their children at birth. According to their accounts, this happened in public hospitals, private clinics and also in clandestine clinics, where they were told that their babies had died, although they were never shown their bodies or given death certificates. They also report that, far from having had their situation of violence recognized, they were suspected of having “handed over” and/or “abandoned” their children. In this article, based on the analysis of the story of Luisa, one of these women, we explore the contexts in which these thefts took place, in order to understand the arguments, values and prescriptions that were constructed to justify the separation of their sons and daughters. We hypothesize that the interrupted maternities of these women are the product of a specific type of violence informed by a model of maternal morality and based on gender regimes that have allowed the minorization of certain women. Our work seeks to be an input to explain the socio-political uses of the category “maternity” in the context of child stealing in Argentina, with the intention of showing the plasticity of the mandates associated with it, as well as the porosity of the border that defines the appropriate or desirable nature of its exercise, which has direct effects on women’s right to motherhood in our recent history.