Argentina law rekindles tensions
Suspected children of victims of Dirty War to undergo DNA tests.
Argentina’s senate has passed a landmark bill that could force hundreds of people to take DNA tests to see if their parents were some of the thousands who disappeared during the country’s so-called Dirty War.
The law calls for compulsive DNA testing of those suspected of born in clandestine detention centres in the 1970s and ’80s, when Argentina was ruled by the military.
Children born to opponents of the government were taken and given away to those loyal to it.
While many children have volunteered for genetic tests, some have refused, fearing that the only parents they have ever known might be taken from them. The idea of forced tests has rekindled tensions in Argentinian society.
Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo reports.