Stolen in Chile, raised in Germany

In Chile, mothers are still searching for their children who were stolen from them and forcibly given up for adoption. Their daughters and sons were also placed with couples in Germany.

The elderly woman stares nervously at the door in the arrivals hall of Santiago de Chile airport. Holding a neon pink cardboard sign that reads "My beloved son, Héctor," Margot Ulloa watches the passengers trickle slowly out of the doorway.

Suddenly, Héctor Mangelsdorff appears in the doorway and looks out at the crowd. When he sees them, he walks purposefully over to Ulloa, embraces her, and the first tears stream down the 52-year-old's face. The two are seeing each other for the first time since Héctor was taken from his mother at the age of five months and given up for adoption to a German couple almost two years later – against Ulloa's express wishes.

More than 20,000 Chilean children placed abroad

Héctor is not an isolated case: According to Chilean President Gabriel Boric, more than 20,000 Chilean children were placed with adoptive parents abroad between the 1970s and 1990s – most of them illegally. However, the exact percentage of legal placements remains unclear. The number of children placed in Germany is also unknown, as many German youth welfare offices do not keep accurate statistics on international adoptions.

Héctor's adoptive parents, who prefer to be called by his first name only, never hid his origins from him. His adoptive father was stationed at the German Consulate General in the southern Chilean city of Concepción at the time. Héctor recounts that he was told his mother, then 16 years old, had been caught begging with him there. She was then taken to a Catholic convent and the child was taken away from her.

Through the Chilean victims' organization "Hijos y Madres del Silencio" (Children and Mothers of Silence), mother and son were reunited after 52 years. The reconciliation is difficult to describe, says the man with the friendly face, beret, and thoughtful speech. Something between birth and death, "only in a 'good' way. With all the surges of emotion and tears."

Authorities wanted to get rid of poor people.

According to historian Karen Alfaro, the mass abduction of young children from poor families was a common practice among the authorities during the military dictatorship (1973-1990). "It was seen as a practical way to absolve themselves of responsibility for poor people."

Following the coup in September 1973, the South American country slid from one economic crisis to the next as a result of neoliberal reforms. Mass unemployment prevailed, and at times, according to official figures, around half the population lived in poverty. Social programs were virtually nonexistent.

“There was a network of social workers, church members, and judges who were ideologically linked to the dictatorship and disregarded existing laws to put children up for adoption,” explains Alfaro, who teaches at the Universidad Austral in the southern city of Valdivia. In some cases, mothers were told at birth that their child had been stillborn. Later, court documents claimed that the mother had abandoned the newborn.

In Héctor's case, a Chilean court issued a document in 1982 that facilitated the recognition of the adoption in Germany. It stated that Margot Ulloa had abandoned her child and therefore could not have been asked for her consent. This proves that his adoptive parents did not act entirely legally, Héctor explains thoughtfully.

According to the Chilean investigative news portal Ciper, adoptive parents at the time paid an average of around US$10,000 for the placement service. Chilean authorities tolerated and in some cases even encouraged this practice well into the 1990s, even after the end of the dictatorship. Instead of informing the youth welfare offices in the recipient countries about the situation, many embassies helped the couples seeking adoptions and overlooked false statements in the documents.

Investigations only after many years

Only when the mothers searching for their children increased the pressure did the Chilean justice system launch an investigation. After more than 30 years, several alleged perpetrators were charged with child abduction, obstruction of justice, and forming a criminal organization. A court ruling from early 2025 also suspended the statute of limitations in certain cases, as it can be assumed that human rights violations were involved. Héctor sees the suffering of the women as particularly important. "I think this reckoning is especially crucial for the mothers who have been searching for their children for decades."