ABSTRACT
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo emerged amidst the Argentine dirty war, when tens of thousands of citizens were disappeared by a military regime. These mothers of the disappeared organized to demand information about their loved ones and to ensure their safe return. They protested boldly and in public, at a time when arrests, detainment, torture, and assassination of suspected subversives were ongoing. Their mobilization extended beyond Argentina, to international NGOs and human-rights activists, foreign journalists and diplomats, and Church leaders, to insist on the regime’s compliance with their demands. Following the war’s end, the Mothers expanded their advocacy efforts in new ways, organizing a group focused solely on the return of children born in captivity and placed under illegal adoptions; resisting any final resolutions that would excuse culpability for atrocities; and branching out to support a number of human-rights issues in Argentina and beyond.
