Spanish society has been shaken by allegations of the theft and trafficking of thousands of babies by nuns, priests and doctors, which started under Franco and continued up to the 1990s.
Lawyers believe that up to 300,000 babies were taken.
The scandal is closely linked to the Catholic Church, which under Franco assumed a prominent role in Spain's social services including hospitals, schools and children's homes.
Nuns and priests compiled waiting lists of would-be adoptive parents, while doctors were said to have lied to mothers about the fate of their children.
Single pregnant teenaged girls were sent to Nuestra Señora de La Almudena maternity prison. In some cases, the pregnant women would be lined in a row, and men, who had paid a fee, would be allowed to choose among the woman for one to marry or work in his home; the women would never know before the purpose. The men would sometimes also return the women they had selected, indicating they were not happy with their choice and then pick out a new woman. It was primarily from the Nuestra Señora de La Almudena maternity prison that children, part of the stolen babies scandal, were taken, with women continuing to be imprisoned there until 1984. The conditions at the state supported facility were so bad that girls would commit suicide by jumping off the top floor stairwell.