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Outlook: We discovered we were stolen as babies

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Maria Diemar and Daniel Olsson

22/02/2021 GMT

We discovered we were stolen as babies

BBC World Service - Outlook, We discovered we were stolen as babies

Maria Diemar and Daniel Olsson were adopted from Chile and brought up in Sweden

Maria Diemar and Daniel Olsson were adopted from Chile in the 70s and raised in Sweden. They thought their birth mothers gave them up willingly. Later, they discovered the truth.

In 1975, when Maria Diemar was two months old, she was flown more than 8000 miles from Chile to Sweden to meet her adoptive parents. They couldn't have children of their own, and thought they could offer a home to a child from a poorer country. Two years later, they brought over another baby from Chile, just a few weeks old, and called him Daniel. The adoption agency didn't have much information about the children's biological parents, but were clear that - to their knowledge - their birth mothers had given them up willingly. Growing up, it wasn't easy for Maria or Daniel to live with the knowledge that they'd been given away. Both experienced discrimination in Sweden as a result of their skin colour. Daniel struggled with depression. Desperate to know more about where they came from, Maria set out to find the truth about their backgrounds, only to discover that they were part of a national scandal in Chile. 

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com


Picture: Maria Diemar and Daniel Olsson
Credit: Maria Diemar

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