Happy ending this morning in the courts of Arenys de Mar (Maresme) where a large representation of the Maghrebi community of Vallès Oriental has supported the claim of Rashida, a mother from Montornès del Vallès to whom the General Directorate of Child Care and Adolescence (DGAIA) withdrew her four-year-old daughter, Mariem, based on arguments that could not be proven and for which they had to return the little girl with her family. “Now I believe in justice, but we would have to investigate the performance of the DGAIA” Rashida pointed out.
“We are fed up with the abuses and harassment of the DGAIA towards us” say the members of the Moroccan community who supported the return of Mariem to her family. As they have explained, at the Montornès school to which the little girl attended, they interpreted that her father could have subjected her to sexual abuse. “The social services intervened, coerced the mother and reported her to the DGAIA” which, for its part, immediately “without an investigation” withdrew custody, without even giving them the opportunity to prove “that it was a mistake.”
The one who has proven the innocence of the family have been the expert reports, which according to members of the community, after a forensic doctor has examined the little girl, have led to the return of the minor to her family. “But the girl has been traumatized by the treatment she received” laments the mother and “those who have made the mistake have not asked us for forgiveness or offered solutions so that the little girl can return to normality, without fear.”
This case, according to members of the Moroccan community, “is one more of the abuses committed against us, because they believe that because we are foreigners we do not take care of our family.” The examination to which the judicial experts have submitted the little girl has concluded that “there were no abuses.” However, the little girl has been in the custody of the DGAIA for several weeks “without allowing her mother to visit her” and “subjecting her to humiliating treatment,” she explains, every time she tried. They assure that they have up to “37 files from a single school that the DGAIA protects,” reveals Abdesalam, so they do not rule out opening the judicial route.
AAuate Zellali, an activist from the Moroccan community, stresses that there are other cases that point to negligent behavior on the part of the DGAIA since they usually “take radical measures without previously investigating the cases” and apply a radical protocol “in which they do not give the option of defending those affected.”
For his part, the educator César Muñoz, an international Childhood consultant who closely follows the case and provided the help of a social educator to temporarily accommodate the girl, assures that “the separation of Rachida and Mariem has been resolved” after submitting the petition to the DGAIA leadership and the General Secretary for Children. However, he regrets that on “repeated occasions the general management does not respect or take into account legal and, above all, human issues” typified in articles 2 and 3 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by all the countries of the world.
For their part, sources from the DGAIA do not enter into assessing the specific case of Montornès, but recall that he decides to withdraw guardianships in a collegiate manner – a team of social workers and psychologists or representatives of the school. The decision, they point out, “is meditated and contrasted” and is made when indicators of helplessness are detected. Before making decisions, “indications, opportunities and help are given to the family.”
From the general direction they clarify that “they are not reasons for helplessness, nor poverty, nor the fact that the family is a foreigner or is in an irregular administrative situation.” They insist that guardianship be withdrawn “if there are indicators that the child is helpless, neglected or mistreated.”
