pro-búsqueda was founded in san salvador in 1994, by jesuit priest jon cortina and human rights researchers ralph sprenkels, mirna perla and dorothee molders. pro-búsqueda efforts soon led to the first incidents of children kidnapped during the war being reunited with their biological families. physicians for human rights provided technical support the perform dna testing for the families and children involved. in subsequent years, dozens of disappeared children were traced and identified by pro-búsqueda. many of these children turned out to have been adopted, through flawed adoption mechanisms, to other countries. pro-búsqueda's research was able to locate disappeared children in the united states of america, france, spain, italy, and the netherlands, among other countries.