Front picture: AI, 2026
Sources: AP/ Grupo del Diarios América
Santiago, 13 November 2026 – balr/jn
Teresita de Jesús Padilla, 66, embraced two of her sons on 11 November in Santiago, decades after they were taken from her as infants during Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973–1990). The reunion with Tim Rolnick (41) and Travis Murdoch (37) at the offices of the organisation Nos Buscamos is one of many made possible by DNA testing and civil-society efforts – and it once again highlights one of the darkest chapters in Chilean history.
Padilla was young and alone when her first son Tim was taken from hospital as a baby. Four years later the same happened to the twins Travis and Chris. The children were adopted in the United States. An older brother, Alberto, remained in Chile and searched for his siblings for decades but died before the reunion. Chris could not travel because of severe injuries from a 2013 car accident. Tim had taken a MyHeritage DNA test in 2020 and thereby found the trail to his biological family.
“God gave me back my children, whom I thought I had lost forever,” Padilla said. The brothers, who grew up in the US knowing they were adopted but not how, say they now want to look forward.
Tens of thousands of affected families
Estimates put the number of irregular or forced adoptions during the dictatorship at around 20,000–22,000 cases (judicial figures); civil-society organisations such as Nos Buscamos speak of up to 50,000 affected families. Poor and Indigenous mothers were particularly vulnerable. They were often told the babies had died or were ill. A network of doctors, social workers, judges and lawyers facilitated the overseas adoptions – frequently for payment. The practice began before the coup but peaked under Pinochet, when international adoption was promoted as a tool of “poverty reduction”.
Pinochet’s security apparatus
The adoptions took place within a broader repressive system. After the coup of 11 September 1973, Pinochet built the DINA (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, 1974–1977), a secret police force often described as “Pinochet’s Gestapo”. Under Manuel Contreras it operated torture centres such as Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38, was responsible for hundreds of disappearances, torture and political murders, and took part in Operation Condor. In 1977 it was formally replaced by the CNI (Central Nacional de Informaciones) – structures and practices remained largely unchanged.
According to official reports (Rettig and Valech commissions), at least around 3,200 people were killed or disappeared and more than 27,000 were politically imprisoned and tortured. The total number of direct victims is estimated at about 30,000. The targeted removal of children from poor families formed part of this policy of social and political control.
Today organisations such as Nos Buscamos continue the work of clarification. In 2026 the Chilean government presented proposals for an origins-tracing unit and a genetic database. For many families, however, the answers come too late.
