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In this article, we examine the separation of families, and particularly the removal of children, in contexts of mass violence and systematic oppression. We draw on diverse historical and empirical illustrations including those of African American slavery and our field research on state-enforced disappearances in Northern Sri Lanka. We argue that the mass systematic removal of children and separation of families has served political purposes and facilitated mass violence and oppression. We offer a novel conceptual understanding of parental harm. Parental harm results from violence that targets and severs intimate familial bonds and renders parents powerless to protect their children. We argue that the violence that generates parental harm is deeply gendered in the ways that it is carried out and experienced, and also in its legacies. Although parental harm is experienced by individuals and concerns intimate relationships, it has macro intergenerational effects on collective historical consciousness and the exercise of political agency. We conclude by examining the diverse ways that individuals and communities respond to separation and the resilience and agency involved in struggles to bring back, seek justice for and commemorate those taken away.