After the coup d'etat of 24 March 1976 overthrew the constitutional government of Isabel Martínez de Perón, Barrancos immediately lost her job as a sociologist at the Comprehensive Medical Attention Program (PAMI). Under the civil-military dictatorship, she received death threats, and several of her classmates and fellow teachers began to "disappear". However, she could not go into exile because she had two very young daughters from her first marriage, and she had to wait for a judge's decision to give her permission to travel with the girls.