Juan Cabandié Alfonsín was born in March 1978 in the ESMA clandestine detention center, where his mother, Alicia Alfonsín (then aged 17), was being held in captivity after being kidnapped by the Armed Forces during the last military dictatorship of Argentina (1976–1983). She and Cabandié's father, Damián Abel Cabandié (aged 19) were taken from their homes by the military on 23 November 1977. Damián Abel Cabandié and Alicia Alfonsín remain "disappeared" to this day.
