Nos Buscamos estimates tens of thousands of babies were taken from Chilean families in the 1970s and 1980s, based on a report from the Investigations Police of Chile which reviewed the paper passports of Chilean children who left the country and never came back.
“The real story was these kids were stolen from poor families, poor women that didn’t know. They didn’t know how to defend themselves,” said Constanza del Rio, founder and director of Nos Buscamos.
Jimmy Thyden, second from right, sits with his wife, Johannah Thyden, right, his birth mother Maria Angelica Gonzalez, second from left, his brother Jonathan Gonzalez in Valdivia, Chile. Credit: AP
The child-trafficking coincided with many other human rights violations that took place during the 17-year reign of Augusto Pinochet, who led a Chilean coup to overthrow Marxist President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. During the dictatorship, at least 3095 people were killed, according to government figures, and tens of thousands more were tortured or jailed for political reasons.
Over the past nine years, Nos Buscamos has orchestrated more than 450 reunions between adoptees and their birth families, del Rio said.
Other nonprofit organisations are doing similar work, including Hijos y Madres del Silencio in Chile and Connecting Roots in the United States.
Nos Buscamos has been partnering for two years with genealogy platform MyHeritage, which provides free at-home DNA testing kits for distribution to Chilean adoptees and suspected victims of child trafficking in Chile.
“I was trying to bookend 42 years of a life taken from her. Taken from us both.”
Jimmy Lippert Thyden
Thyden’s DNA test confirmed that he was 100 per cent Chilean and matched him to a first cousin who also uses the MyHeritage platform.
Thyden sent the cousin his adoption papers, which included an address for his birth mother and a very common name in Chile: Maria Angelica Gonzalez.
It turns out his cousin had a Maria Angelica Gonzalez on their mother’s side and helped him make the connection.
But Gonzalez wouldn’t take his phone calls until he texted her a photo of his wife and daughters.
Jimmy Thyden (right) hugs his brother Pablo Leiva Gonzalez as Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his Chilean birth mother (left) looks on.Credit: AP
“Then just the dam broke,” said Thyden, who sent more photos of the American family who adopted him, his time in the US Marines, his wedding, and many other memorable life moments.
“I was trying to bookend 42 years of a life taken from her. Taken from us both,” he said.
He travelled to Chile with his wife, Johannah, and their two daughters, Ebba Joy, 8, and Betty Grace, 5, to meet his newly discovered family.
Stepping into his mother’s home, Thyden was greeted with 42 colourful balloons, each one signifying a year of lost time with his Chilean family.
“There is an empowerment in popping those balloons, empowerment in being there with your family to take inventory of all that was lost,” he said.
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Thyden recalls his birth mother’s response to hearing from him: “Mijo [son] you have no idea the oceans I’ve cried for you. How many nights I’ve laid awake praying that God let me live long enough to learn what happened to you.”
Thyden said his adoptive parents are supportive of his journey to reunite with his lost relatives, but were “unwitting victims” of a far-reaching illegal adoption network and are wrestling with the realities of the situation.
“My parents wanted a family but they never wanted it like this,” he said. “Not at the extortion of another, the robbing of another.”
AP
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Source : https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/son-stolen-at-birth-hugs-mother-for-first-time-in-42-years-20230828-p5e023.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_world