2020-05-29 Fri

“Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” is a movement of Argentine mothers who campaigned for their children who had been "disappeared" during the military dictatorship, pursuing the government for answers between 1977 and 2006.

Women had organized to gather, holding a vigil, while also trying to learn what had happened to their adult children during the 1970s and 1980s. They began to gather for this every Thursday, from 1977 at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in public defiance of the government's law against the mass assembly.

Wearing white headscarves to symbolize the diapers of their lost children, embroidered with the names and dates of birth of their children, the mothers marched to protest the denials of their children's existence or their mistreatment by the military regime. Despite personal risks, they wanted to hold the government accountable for the human rights violations which were committed in the Dirty War.

In the year 2015, Argentine President Cristina Fernández announce the issuance of a new 100 pesos Banknote. The note is dedicated to the mothers, grandmothers, children, and grandchildren of Plaza del Mayo. The obverse of the banknote depicts a side profile of one of the members of the march wearing the iconic headscarf with the monument behind.

Image Courtesy: stevenbron.nl