Lost children of Francoism

The lost children of Francoism (Spanish: niños perdidos del franquismo, niños robados por el franquismo; Catalan: nens perduts del franquisme, nens furtats pel franquisme; Galician: nenos do franquismo, pícaros roubados polo Franquismo) were the children abducted from Republican parents, who were either in jail or had been assassinated by Nationalist troops, during the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain,^[1] and later from random citizens or girls confined in the notorious Women's Protection Board.^[2][3][4] The kidnapped children were sometimes also victims of child trafficking and forced adoption.^[5]

The numbers of stolen children are highly speculative because these children were often not registered upon birth, and even when they had been registered, archives were destroyed later; these figures may include children who became orphaned as a result of the Civil War (1936–1939) and, therefore, do not fall under the same category as children taken away from their parents by the regime after the war for political or social reasons.