Spontaneous Appearances

What Happens When a Young Person Approaches Abuelas?

Each young person who approaches Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo does so because of persistent doubts: Is it possible that the people who call themselves my parents are not really my parents? And if not, whose child am I? Could I have a family, someone who is looking for me? The young people who approach our organization face these questions as well as many others.

For this reason, a lot of young adults approach us with fear and without knowing exactly what Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo do.

One of Abuelas' objectives is for each young person who approaches the institution to have the possibility of starting a private and confidential search regarding his/her origins.

When a young person approaches Abuelas, he/she is interviewed to find out whether or not the case relates to Abuelas and its mission. Any children with records or certificates of being born during the years 1975 and 1980 may be presumed to be the child of someone who disappeared.

The search is not easy since the majority of the documents that these young people bring to Abuelas are false. However, the National Commission for the Right to an Identity (CONADI, a commission under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, Security, and Human Rights) makes this search possible. Documents and records are requested from distinct institutions involved in the registration of each baby and, if necessary, free blood tests are requested from the National Bank of Genetic Data.

With CONADI's help, it is possible to start an identity search for a young person born between 1975 and 1980.

Throughout the years, more than 407 young people have approached CONADI and 58 cases have been solved. Of these 58 cases, not all of them are young people that are searched for by Abuelas but most of them have found their biological families.

If a young person over the age of 29 approaches Abuelas, the search is conducted through an agreement reached by Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and the National Ombudsman. In these cases, the main purpose is to recover the identity of the young man or woman, unrelated to the matter of disappeared children. If you have doubts about your true identity and you think that you are the child of a disappeared, contact dudas@abuelas.org.ar