Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

By Khmer Democrat, Phnom Penh
Expanding our Mind Series

Cambodian mothers, we need to hear your voices. Raise your voices for your children who need you to be a mother to them, to educate them, to care for them, to love them. Take to the streets and demand that the government provide quality education. Take to the streets and demand that the government provide quality basic health services. SPEAK LOUDLY FOR YOUR CHILDREN. They need to hear from you. We need to hear from you. Excerpts from:

http://www.imow.org/wpp/stories/viewStory?storyId=1106

My Child Is Your Child

The Mothers of Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo

When mothers raise their voices, they cannot be ignored. Among the most riveting examples are Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Starting as a handful of women, they grew to become a national force and an international inspiration, powered, against all odds, by love for their children.

During the 1970s and 1980s, 30,000 of Argentina's sons and daughters were kidnapped, tortured and killed in the country's "Dirty War." Military juntas were deployed to annihilate left-wing opposition from trade unionists, students and activists. When the government's fear tactics had forced much of the population into silence, a group of mothers refused to hide themselves away.

The mothers demanded to know the fate of their "disappeared" children by gathering and being seen. Linked arm and arm, they circled the plaza outside the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires, carrying their children's photographs and names.

It was not a single dramatic protest march. The mothers marched every Thursday afternoon at half past three, for thirty years. Their chant was always the same: "Bring them back alive." This simple, repeated action captured the world's attention, transforming the fate of the "disappeared" into an international human rights cause.