The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla.

The Mothers began demonstrating in the Plaza de Mayo, the public square located in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in the city of Buenos Aires, on 30 April 1977.

The women demonstrated in the square on a daily basis and held signs with their pleas, followed by carrying photos of their missing children, and wearing white scarves with their names.

In September 1977, in order to make a larger opportunity to share their stories with other Argentinians, the mothers decided to join the annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Luján, located 30 miles (48 km) outside Buenos Aires.

Most notably founders Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino, and María Ponce de Bianco, and French nun supporters Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, disappeared.

They were later found to have been murdered, perpetrated by a group led by Alfredo Astiz, a former commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship.

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, known for having found and identified the remains of Che Guevara, later find the bodies of these women and determined that they had been killed via death flights, when they were thrown out of planes to die in the sea.

Despite democracy being re-established in the 1983 general election, the Mothers movement continued to hold marches and demonstrations, demanding trials and sentences for the military personnel who had participated in the government that overthrew Isabel Perón in the 1976 coup d'état.

They began to gather for this in 1977 every Thursday at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in public defiance of the government's law against mass assemblies.

For months the government had refused to answer questions about the missing people; the mothers marched in twos in solidarity to protest the denials of their children's existence or their mistreatment by the military regime.

Their persistence to publicly remember and try to find their children, the sustained group organisation, the use of symbols and slogans, and the silent weekly protests attracted reactive measures from those in power.

After the founder, Azucena Villaflor De Vincenti, listed names of 'the missing' in a newspaper in December 1977 (on International Human Rights Day), she was kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

Their deaths were ordered by Alfredo Astiz and Jorge Rafael Videla (who was a senior commander in the Argentine Army and dictator of Argentina from 1976 to 1981), both of whom were later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the repression of dissidents during the Dirty War.

This was documented in the article Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, which provided testimony of Jacobo Timerman and his experience of torture and abuse during this time.

[8] As growing numbers joined weekly marches on Thursdays, the day the first few met,[1] the Mothers also began an international campaign to defy the propaganda put out by the military regime.

[13] In 1978, when Argentina hosted the World Cup, the Mothers' demonstrations at the Plaza were covered by the international press in town for the sporting event.

[11] Later when Adolfo Scilingo spoke at the National Commission on Disappeared People, he described how many prisoners were drugged and thrown out of planes to their deaths in the Atlantic Ocean.

From early 1978 onwards, residents who lived along the Río de la Plata have found human remains of those abducted, murdered and dumped at sea.

[14] In 2005, forensic anthropologists dug up some remains of bodies that had been buried in an unmarked grave after washing ashore (in late December 1977) near the beach resort of Santa Teresita, south of Buenos Aires.

DNA testing identified among them Azucena Villaflor, Esther Careaga and María Eugenia Bianco, three pioneer Mothers of Plaza who had been "disappeared", as well as Léonie Duquet.

[15][1] Never giving up their pressure on the regime, after the military gave up its authority to a civilian government in 1983, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo rekindled hopes that they might learn the fates of their children, and pushed again for the information.

[16] Beginning in 1984, teams assisted by the American geneticist Mary-Claire King began to use DNA testing to identify remains, when bodies of the "disappeared" were found.

[18][failed verification] Some Mothers and Grandmothers suffered disappointments when the grandchildren, now adults, did not want to know their hidden history, or refused to have their DNA tested.

One group, called the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line" [es], focused on legislation, the recovery of the remains of their children, and bringing ex-officials to justice.

These mothers felt responsible for carrying on their children's political work and assumed the agenda that originally led to the disappearance of the dissidents.

[20] A scholar of the movement, Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, wrote that the association faction wanted "a complete transformation of Argentine political culture" and "envisions a socialist system free of the domination of special interests".

[28] By 2011, Sueños Compartidos had completed 5,600 housing units earmarked for slum residents, and numerous other facilities in six provinces and the city of Buenos Aires.

There was controversy when the chief financial officer of Sueños Compartidos, Sergio Schoklender [es], and his brother Pablo (the firm's attorney) were alleged to have embezzled funds.

After gaining Bonafini's confidence, they were managing the project's finances with little oversight from the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo or the program's licensor, the Secretary of Public Works.

[31] Following an investigation ordered by Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide, the Secretary of Public Works canceled the Sueños Compartidos contract in August 2011.