'Up to 300,000 Spanish babies were stolen from their parents and sold for adoption over a period of five decades, a new investigation reveals.

The children were trafficked by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns in a widespread practice that began during General Franco’s dictatorship and continued until the early Nineties.

Hundreds of families who had babies taken from Spanish hospitals are now battling for an official government investigation into the scandal. Several mothers say they were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth.'

Read more: 300,000 Babies Stolen from Their Parents and Sold for Adoption: Haunting BBC Documentary Exposes 50-Year Scandal of Baby Trafficking by the Catholic Church in Spain