This is Aaron Nelson. I wrote the story I just needed to find my family

the scandal of Chile's stolen children published on January 26th of

2021. From 2009 until 2013 I was a correspondent in Chile. In 2011, I was contacted by a documentary program out of Norway, and they had asked me to track

down the biological parents of a young woman who had been adopted by Norwegian parents.

She was originally from the area of Tamuco, which is a city south of Santiago south central Chile the town of Tamuco has a heavy

indigenous population the Mapuche which are the largest indigenous group in

Chile ultimately I found her extended family, but I also found out that this woman's parents were dead.

They had died years before.

In 2019, I was contacted by a family member of someone who had

been adopted to Sweden. I became aware that there was a considerable momentum movement and a

national investigation into the international adoptions that occurred under the

dictatorship in the 70s and 80s.

When I met Maria, the woman who's the focus of the story, she was in her mid-40s.

She found her mother when she was still in her 20s. It was not a heartfelt homecoming. I think her mother felt, this is according to Maria, that she may have felt somewhat guilty, but what she did also tell Maria very

clearly was that she had not given her up for adoption.

Maria was taken from her.

And I think that knowledge is largely what

has driven Maria to continue pressing the authorities, continuing to search for accountability.

So the Chilean government investigation, and this occurred after the story was published,

told her formally on the 17th of January in

2023 that she had, according to their investigation, been kidnapped.

What made it really hard for and continues to make it hard for the government to

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