Political Report # 1420 Chile's stolen children: 'I was tricked into handing over my baby'

Political Report # 1420 Chile's stolen children: 'I was tricked into handing over my baby' by  Jane Chambers, BBC News

Thousands of Chilean children were stolen from their mothers during the military rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet and sent abroad for adoption. A government investigation is looking into how the babies were taken. Sara Jineo is still extremely upset about what happened when she took her four-day-old baby boy, Camilo, to the hospital in Temuco, southern Chile, in 1988. "They tricked me," she says. "They made me go to the hospital and said they were going to do a blood test on my baby." But the woman who took Camilo out of her arms never brought him back. "I looked all over the hospital and when I went outside and asked a policeman for help, he looked at me, laughed, and said I was mad," she says. Sara, who still lives outside Temuco, has been looking for her son for the last 30 years. She is convinced he was taken abroad. She says a local taxi driver told her about a woman taking a crying baby to the local airport on the same day Camilo disappeared. The child was apparently wrapped in the same distinctive baby blanket she had used. Her situation is not unique. Sara is part of a generation of mothers and children trying to find each other after being involuntarily separated during Gen Augusto Pinochet's military rule from 1973 to 1990. Who was Augusto Pinochet? Life terms for 24 behind dictators' murder pact Many of the mothers, including Sara, were Mapuche, the largest indigenous community in Chile. Making up around 7.5% of the 17 million population, they often live in poverty in rural areas in the south and say they are treated like second-class citizens, deprived of their land and culture. Though illegal adoptions did not start during the Pinochet years - and many were also going on in neighbouring Argentina - they were ramped up under his rule, and with a specific aim. The Pinochet government wanted to eliminate extreme poverty, particularly among children. The strategy was to simply take children out of the country, according to Jeanette Velásquez, who works for volunteer group Hijos y Madres del Silencio (Children and Mothers of Silence). She says social workers, nuns, doctors, lawyers and international adoption agencies were all involved in a slick operation, which sent babies to developed countries, including Holland, the United States, Sweden and Germany. "Some women tell me horrific stories about how they were breast-feeding their baby when it was pulled from their arms. There was a lot of violence," she says. In other cases, the pressure was more psychological. Social workers would tell mothers they were too poor to keep the child, or that they had too many other children already to cope with another. Vulnerable mothers, mainly single mothers, were specifically targeted. Some women were forced to sign paperwork they did not understand. Some were even told their children had died. What happened? - Some 20,000 children were adopted by foreign couples during the Pinochet era - Chile's Court of Appeals says at least 8,000 of those are suspicious cases - Some activists believe that number is much higher - Almost 200 mothers have been reunited with their children Alejandro Quezada's mother was one of those women. She was just 14 and a single mother, from a rural area outside of Valdivia, in the country's south. Shortly after giving birth at home, she took her baby son for a check-up at the local hospital. There, he was whisked away from her, with staff insisting he was ill. She was later told he had died and his body had already been disposed of. "When she started screaming, they gave her an injection and she didn't wake up for three days," says Alejandro. Women like Alejandro's birth mother were never given death certificates or allowed to see the body of their child. They were told it would upset them and the climate of fear during the Pinochet era stopped them from asking further questions. Alejandro only started piecing the story together much later in life. In 1979, when he was just a few weeks old, he was sent to The Netherlands. He says he was adopted by a Dutch couple who considered themselves part of the Flower Power generation and wanted to help poorer countries. They were told his mother had voluntarily given him up for adoption. "During my teenage years, I had so many questions about my identity," says Alejandro. "Even though I love and appreciate my adoptive parents, I felt depressed and alone and went off the rails." In 1997, when he was 17 years old, he travelled to Chile with his adoptive family to meet the Dutch nun who had arranged his adoption. She took Alejandro to meet his birth mother. He immediately noted their physical resemblance, but it was not an easy encounter. "I had so many questions for her and it was very frustrating, because we couldn't understand each other and the nun wouldn't let us see each other for very long," he says. Alejandro, who had grown up speaking Dutch, decided he needed to learn Spanish so he and his birth mother could talk to each other without a translator. It was not until he was 30 and living in Chile that he finally learned the truth: his mother had never wanted to give him up but had been told he was dead. Courtesy of Alejandro Quezada It took years for Alejandro to learn that his mother had not wanted to give him up for adoption The nun who arranged the adoption and used to shuttle back and forth between the two countries is now living in The Netherlands. She has spoken publicly about the adoptions she was involved in and has insisted that she did the right thing. She said she believed that she created better lives for Alejandro and the various other children given in adoption. Alejandro's experiences led him to found a charity, Chilean Adoptees Worldwide, which helps other adoptees find their mothers. The search is often arduous. The adoption documents rarely list the full names of both parents. Sometimes names and identity numbers were deliberately changed. Alejandro has found the registry office in the capital, Santiago, to be a good source of information, as original handwritten birth certificates sometimes hold clues. A government investigation started in 2018 as mothers demanded answers about why their children were taken from them against their will. A growing number of people who were taken as children from their biological mothers also started discovering the truth behind their adoptions. Because of the growing number of complaints a special police unit was formed last March, which is working with mothers in regions where many of the children were thought to have been taken. A DNA test has become the final piece in the puzzle. The government and charities helping the mothers want them to do the test so their DNA forms part of a central data bank managed by the government that will help adoptees find matches. But the women are expected to pick up the costs themselves and each kit costs around $100 (£83) - which is around half a month's salary for the majority of them. Jaime Balmaceda, a judge at the Court of Appeals, is involved in the government investigation. He is in charge of working out which of the adoptions were legitimate and which were not. His theory is that money was changing hands and that is what he is trying to prove. Not everyone is convinced the investigators are digging deep enough. Critics think that the Chilean state is trying to shield the judges, social workers, nuns and others involved in getting the children out of the country from prosecution. Those who want to see justice done say the advanced age and poor health of some of those suspected of involvement in the forced adoption scheme should not be a barrier to prosecution. Mr Balmaceda says delays in the investigation are not deliberate but that the process is long and often hampered by missing paperwork. "We are not trying to protect anyone, or waiting for people to die so they can't be brought to justice," he insists. For Alejandro, jail-time for those behind his forced adoption has never been the goal. The nun who arranged for him to be sent to The Netherlands recently visited Chile and faced questioning as part of the government investigation. But Alejandro says he does not want her to go to prison as she is in her 80s now. "We've been treated inhumanely, but that doesn't mean that we should treat other people like that." Making sure something like this never happens again is more important to him. "If you want to adopt because you want to help, that is one of the most noble things in the world," he says. "But you need to make sure you have all the information, because children will have questions about their biological roots and you need to make sure that you know the answers." Original article can be found (here). URL:      https://theintercept.com/2019/09/24/puerto-rico-austerity-congress/

Abstract, Continually Redefining Protagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015

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Continually Redefining Protagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015

by Jessica K. Taft

Activists in the Peruvian working children’s movement have been theorizing about “children’s protagonismo” for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infusion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of meanings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American engagements with Marxism, was primarily understood in terms of class struggle and collective organization. Second, because of opportunities and threats in the 1980s and 1990s, it became more closely associated with children’s rights frameworks. Third, since the early 2000s, the movement’s approach to protagonismo has drawn on indigenous theories of interdependence and relationality to challenge the individualism of neoliberal capitalism and governmentality. In holding these diverse ideological commitments together, the concept has allowed the movement of working children to communicate across multiple discursive communities.

Political Report # 1248 How Unaccompanied Youth Become Exploited Workers in the US

By Stephanie L. Canizales,  The Conversation

The Trump administration has released a series of executive orders targeting immigration at the U.S. southern border. Central American families and children traveling alone represent nearly half of all unauthorized migrants apprehended by Customs and Border Protection. The criminalization of immigrants at the U.S. southern border disproportionately affects Central American children and youth. Nearly 153,000 unaccompanied Mexican and Central American children have been apprehended at the U.S. southern border since 2014. Of those detained by Customs and Border Protection and processed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 60 percent have been reunited with a sponsor, typically a parent. The other 40 percent are placed with a nonparent sponsor. With the guidance of a parent or guardian, these youths might obtain financial, legal, health and social support. Others who enter without detection and remain unaccompanied when they arrive in the U.S. are financially independent and may never gain access to formal resettlement services. Recent orders by the Trump administration that prioritize unaccompanied child migrants for deportation heighten the vulnerability of immigrant children in the U.S. Since 2012, I have conducted in-depth observations and interviews with undocumented immigrant youth who arrived in Los Angeles, California as unaccompanied minors and have remained without a parent throughout their settlement in the U.S. I use pseudonyms for confidentiality as research participants are migrant youth living and working in the U.S. without authorization.

Political Report # 1211 Obama keeps on deporting Central American teens. What will Trump do?

rotesters hold signs as they march in opposition to the election of President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016, in St. Louis. AP Photo/Jeff Roberson. All rights reserved. By Donica Jorden, openDemocracy

The blueprint established under the Obama administration to deport Central American teenagers soon after they reach the age of majority continues to operate unabated. Despite the intercession of public officials and a pending appeal in Federal Immigration Court, North Carolina teenager Pedro Arturo Salmerón was deported from the United States to El Salvador on Saturday, November 12, just days after Donald Trump was elected president. The deportation marks the continuation of a policy begun last year under the Obama government to respond to an unprecedented number of minors and mothers with small children who arrived at the US/Mexican border from the northern Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras during the summer of 2014. In the wake of an escalation in violence that rendered those countries the most dangerous places on earth and set off the mass migration, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a directive in December 2015 taking aim at the young and vulnerable asylum seekers as soon as they aged out of protected status. Though DHS and President Obama insisted that they were only targeting dangerous criminals for arrest and deportation, in reality the opposite seems to be true. It appears that innocent applicants for asylum and relief, who are easily identifiable and located as they faithfully offer all their personal information, are at the highest risk. Then 17, Pedro fled El Salvador to rejoin his family in Charlotte, NC in June 2014, following the brutal murder and decapitation of his cousin by gang members. The gang, his family says, was also threatening his life. But his time with mother Carmen and other family members was abruptly cut short. Pedro immediately applied for humanitarian asylum and the opportunity to live with his family in North Carolina upon arriving in the United States, and the family tirelessly pursued his case, spending thousands of dollars. The Vance High School student was arrested by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the police arm of the DHS) agents on his way to school on January 26, 2016. Able to play several instruments and with dreams of a career in music, Pedro also excelled in sciences and literature at Vance. After his arrest, he was mainly held for the last 10 months at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, 400 miles (640 km) from his family and supporters in North Carolina, in an atmosphere he described as one of "disappointment and despair." The slight and soft-spoken youth, who wears his hair in long, glossy curls down his back, was first slated to be transported to Houston, Texas, on Saturday when the plane he was to take was deemed unable to fly. This was the third time that Pedro and his family had to endure a false start to removal proceedings. At 1 am on July 31, he was moved out of Stewart for imminent deportation, only to be returned to Georgia the next day. The same thing had happened twice earlier that week. Pedro's lawyer said he believed that it was "in retaliation" for having lodged a complaint about a previous move to a facility in Louisiana. Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, representing the 12th congressional district in North Carolina, has been speaking out and supporting Pedro and the Salmeron family all year, including travelling to Stewart to see him. Pedro also was counting on the support of three other congresspersons, Representatives John Lewis (D-GA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), who with Adams wrote a letter to DHS director Jeh Johnson requesting a "humane solution" for the youthful immigrants. But attitudes to these young immigrants do not fall strictly along party lines. Kay Hagen, Democratic Party senator who represented North Carolina in Washington DC from 2009-2015, was vehemently opposed to the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors ).  "Dreamers" are undocumented students who were born in other countries but raised and educated in the United States, and the act allows them to continue their studies in the US In 2010, Hagen was one of only five Democratic senators who opposed the act. Meanwhile, across the aisle, Lindsay Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, is currently working on legislation with Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) to extend President Obama's 2012 initiative known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Under DACA, DHS is supposed to refrain from deporting undocumented persons who came to the United States as children, were educated here, and have no criminal histories. These undocumented immigrants are then granted temporary visas to live and work, which must be renewed every two years. The files of 750,000 DACA applicants and a million DREAMers may prove too tempting for President-Elect Donald Trump, who vociferously declared his intention to deport millions of undocumented immigrants on many occasions during his campaign. After years of scapegoating immigrants and convincing his followers, if not a large part of the American public, that immigrants are "rapists and murderers," it would be easy to demonize the entire immigrant population in order to justify refugee and student deportations and more easily achieve his promised numbers. Bring it on, declares immigrant advocate Viridiana Martínez, one of the founders of NC Dream Team and Alerta Migratoria NC. "Obama told us the right things, but he did the wrong ones," Martinez said. But under Trump, "I am glad the cards are now on the table and there is not a hidden agenda. Because then we can fight accordingly." Original article and sources can be found here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/danica-jorden/obama-keeps-on-deporting-central-american-teens-what-will-trump-do

Political Report # 1125 ICE's War on Refugees By Nick Tabor, Jacobin

A protest against ICE in 2013. Bonnie Gutierrez / Flickr By Nick Tabor, Jacobin

From the time that she fled from El Salvador and was picked up at the US border, Ana Silvia Orellana Urias wore an ankle monitor so the immigration police could track her between check-in dates. On January 2, when immigration agents surrounded her house and she awoke to them banging on the door, she was living just outside Atlanta with her four children. The agents said they'd only come because of her ankle monitor. She was confused - she'd just changed the batteries. When she tried to call her lawyer, an agent reportedly seized her phone. Then they rounded up Urias and her children and sent them to a jail in south Texas, where she said an agent tried to make her sign a paper agreeing to be deported. Hers is one of twenty-eight families the federal government arrested over New Year's weekend, in a series of deportation raids intended to scare off other would-be asylum seekers from Central America. News of similar arrests has trickled in since, and the secretary of homeland security has pledged to keep them up indefinitely. In reaction to the roundups, activists across the country have launched a social media campaign, "Know Your Rights" workshops, and street protests in at least ten cities. On the legal front, attorneys have set up a makeshift bureau in the Texas jail where deportees are being housed and halted the deportation of a dozen families. Other attorneys are investigating possible civil rights abuses during the raids.