Paper short abstract:

We examine the process of construction and transformation of the meanings surrounding the serious violations of the Right to Identity in Chile, during Pinochet’s dictatorships and its relationship with the broader transitional justice processes.

Paper long abstract:

Chile actively participated in the global intercountry adoption circuit during the Pinochet dictatorship. Selman (2012) identifies Chile as one of the top six countries was sending children for ICA in the period from 1980 to 1989. The phenomenon known locally as ‘irregular adoptions' (Salvo Agoglia & Alfaro, 2019) remained for decades as a 'public secrecy' (Taussig, 1999; Mookherjee, 2009). Only became visible in 2014, when numerous denunciations came to light that occurred during this period and the first organizations were formed (NGOs “We Are Looking for Each Other” and “Children and Mothers of Silence”). The Chilean historical tradition of agreeing to amnesty laws to politically foreclose litigations and extinguish the memory of conflict based on the argument that shared impunity is the basis of social peace (Loveman & Lira, 2000) and the silence is a tool of peace-making (Frei, 2018). Currently, the Chilean State has not guaranteed the creation of public policy of justice and repair, which has resulted in the privatization of the demand of truth and justice for the people directly affected, circumscribing the meaning and scope of human rights issues through patterns of social silence historically rooted in Chilean political culture which are very difficult to reconfigure and disarm. In this paper, we examine the process of construction and transformation of the meanings surrounding the serious violations of the Right to Identity in Chile, during Pinochet’s dictatorships and its relationship with the broader transitional justice processes.