In dictatorships (e.g. Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, the GDR, Videla's Argentina) and unstable political systems (e.g. Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Vietnam), as well as in political contexts where ethnic population groups were discriminated against (e.g. Israel's Mizrachim children in the 1950s, the "Stolen Generation" in Australia), child theft occurred—and continues to occur.
Determining the extent of political and/or institutional consistency in the execution of child abduction can be very challenging.
Similarly, even after decades of investigation, significant discrepancies remain regarding the number of children who actually died (and whose deaths were later falsely documented), how many parents initially consented to adoption, and how many children were victims of outright child abduction, amounting to human trafficking.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."
Nelson Mandela (1995)
These children were often taken from their parents as infants or toddlers under false pretenses or abducted outright. The authorities responsible typically informed the parents later that the children had died. In other instances, the parents themselves were murdered. The children were then placed for forced adoption or transferred to families connected to the regime. Many of these children remain unaware of their true identity, even in adulthood. In some cases, adoptive families are unaware that the child they adopted was stolen.
Some children are raised in adoptive households that may be ethnically very different from their biological families. In such cases, the loss of language, culture, and ethnicity can weigh especially heavily on the individuals affected.
When people discover they were taken from their biological parents and had to conceal their true origins, they are often deeply shaken. This revelation forces them to confront questions about their own identity. But they also seek to understand the history behind the theft of their lives. The absence of knowledge about their ancestry creates a strong sense of psychological unease.
This is why many stolen children continue to search for their biological families, even later in life (e.g. Lebensborn children). They seek clarity about their origins, even if their parents are no longer alive. DNA analysis makes this search more possible than ever.