A Chilean mother has reunited with her American daughter, who was taken as a baby more than 40 years ago during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
The mother, 64-year-old Edita Bizama, said that she was confident that her child would one day find her. The daughter was identified as Adamary Garcia, who was removed from her mother only a few days after she was born and immediately sent abroad for adoption.
Separated at Birth
She was one of the roughly 20,000 children that officials estimated were forcibly taken from their families by Chile's military government. The efforts were made as part of a plan to use international adoptions as a means to reduce child poverty in South American countries.
Bizama said that at the time that her daughter was taken from her, which was in 1984, there was a social worker who was very persistent. The Chilean mother said they expressed an interest in adopting during her pregnancy but added that she later started having doubts, according to Reuters.
The social worker then asked the mother how she could raise three children, citing her lack of a job, a home, or stability. Bizama said she spent five days holding and feeding her newborn daughter before she was taken to an office hours away.
After that, Bizama was forced to hand over her new baby and then sent back to her hometown on a bus without her child. The development was something that she kept a secret from her family as she had no way of finding her daughter.
Reuniting With Her Birth Mother
Garcia grew up in Florida and now resides in Puerto Rico. She said that while she knew she was adopted, she had no idea about the circumstances. She added that her journey to reunite with her birth mother started when she found out about Connecting Roots, Yahoo News reported.
Connecting Roots is a non-governmental organization that was started by a Texas firefighter who found out he was taken as an infant during the Chilean dictatorship. The organization was able to identify Bizama as Garcia's birth mother via tracing through her sister's birth certificate.
When Bizama and Garcia came face-to-face, they immediately embraced each other tearfully without speaking a single word. The 64-year-old mother said that the worst was over after finally getting to hold her long-lost daughter.
The mother and daughter are among the roughly 36 Chilean women with children that the Connecting Roots NGO was able to reunite with their children who were taken from them by force, as per The Hindu.
