0/5

Returning: Dateline

Dateline video journalist David O’Shea reports on the children of Argentina’s Disappeared.

Dateline resumes on SBS ONE this Sunday, 18 July at 8.30pm following its break due to the World Cup.

In Dateline’s moving series return for 2010, Sunday 18 July at 8.30pm on SBS ONE, imagine being told that your parents are not your parents.

Even worse, imagine realising that the people who raised you had, in fact, helped to kidnap, torture and murder your real Mum and Dad.

Meet the children of Argentina’s Disappeared.

During the late 1970s Argentina’s military dictatorship kidnapped and killed thousands of political opponents. Many of ‘the Disappeared’ were parents of very young children, or women pregnant at the time of kidnap.

Their children were systematically stolen by the regime’s military and police officers but as Dateline video journalist David O’Shea reports, a group of determined grandmothers are now leading the fight to reunite the stolen with their biological families.

As many as 500 babies were born in detention. So far, 101 have been reunited with their biological relatives, through a national DNA databank and the insistence of the Grandmothers.

But not everyone wants to be reunited. The adoptive children of an Argentinean media baroness objected to the Grandmothers’ calls for their DNA to be tested. Now, DNA has been taken from them against their will.

POST-TRAUMA PUPPIES
Also on Dateline’s series return:

A group of very special dogs is saving the lives of US soldiers who are returning from war deeply damaged.

Dateline video journalist Aaron Lewis meets Phil Bauer who lost his leg in Iraq when his helicopter was shot down. Unable to deal with the post-traumatic stress, he suffered an emotional breakdown, got divorced and attempted suicide.

But that was before Reese arrived on the scene.

Reece, Phil’s golden retriever, was trained to help with daily tasks and to act as a safe barrier between the veteran and the public.

The dogs’ influence is so profound, the US Congress has passed the Service Dogs For Veterans Act, funding a pilot program to provide service dogs to disabled veterans.

And with more traumatised soldiers coming home, these dogs will soon prove their worth.

Leave a Reply