1981, Eduardo Longoni/Corbis/Getty Images, History.com
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The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an Argentine human rights group movement formed in the late 1970s during a period of state terrorism and political repression known as the “Dirty War.” In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship that engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings of suspected political dissidents, many of whom were young activists and students. Amid this, a group of mothers whose children had been disappeared by the regime began gathering in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo, in front of the presidential palace. They wore white headscarves and held signs bearing the names and photographs of their loved ones. Their activism played a crucial role in shedding light on the human rights abuses occurring in the country.
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