Stolen babies scandal haunts Spain

Sister Maria Gomez is an 87-year-old Catholic nun. This month, she appeared in a Spanish court escorted by police. She is accused of snatching an infant from her birth mother and putting the child up for an illegal adoption in 1982. Sister Maria Gomez flatly refused to testify and was jeered as she stepped outside the court. The elderly nun wearing a gray habit has become the face of what is known in Spain as Ninos Robados or Stolen Children.

Thousands of newborn babies -- according to groups working with the now-adult adoptees -- were taken from their mothers, straight out of hospitals, and sold to families desperate for children. At least 2,000 official cases have been filed with Spanish prosecutors, but some believe there could be tens of thousands more, dating as far back as the 1950s and continuing as recently as the 1990s.

So far, it seems the cases, from all across Spain, were individuals making money from misery rather than a nationally coordinated network or organized crime gangs. But of all these cases, only one person has been named as a suspect, Sister Maria Gomez.

One day after her appearance in court, she issued a statement denying the allegations saying they were deeply disgusting and that she has never known a single case of a newborn being taken from a mother through coercion or threats.

We traveled to Spain to talk to those parents who believe their children were stolen and some who believe they were taken from their birth parents.Juan Luis Moreno and Antonio Barroso grew up together as childhood friends. Their parents had different interests and different jobs, but the two families vacationed every year in the city of Zaragoza.

Decades later, when both were in their 40s, Moreno's dying father told his son the truth about those summer holidays: Both families were paying annual installments to a Catholic nun. He said the money paid for the illegal adoption of both boys as newborn babies.

"In fact, my dad was given a choice: boy or girl," Perez said. "They put it bluntly: This was a market for babies."

Moreno said his father told him he had paid roughly double the price of their family home, a huge sum for a working-class family.The truth angered both men so much that they tracked down the nun - not Sister Maria Gomez - who facilitated the illegal adoption and confronted her. At first she denied receiving any payments, but then slowly remembers both of their adopted parents.

Barroso said: "I was so angry and I threatened her: you're going to have problems. You're going to jail. It was the least I could do because I wanted to strangle her."

"Imagine! She tells you with all the coolness of the world. There were two for the Penedes region. Like we were chickens in the market. Like two kilos of tomatoes. What kind of a twisted mind is this?" asks Moreno .After that, Moreno and Barroso set up Anadir, an association for Spain's stolen children. The response has been overwhelming. Hundreds have contacted them in the hopes of finding their lost children or parents.

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