BOYS AND GIRLS 'STOLEN' BY THE ADMINISTRATION

"They give you an administrative resolution that says that if you do not have resources you can go to the General Council of the Law. Telling a family that and nothing is the same. " Francisco Cárdenas feels that Social Services has stolen his daughter. The same happens to Monike and Ferdinand. And to Anabel and Jesus. They are the families of children who have been retired, for various reasons, by Social Services and sent to foster homes or families.

Records that testify to a tragic reality named by the people affected as the 'robbery of children' of the 21st century. But these stories are not treacherous nuns for profit but a system built on the reports of technical personnel with a strong responsibility and Kafkaesque chains of procedures that condemn parents and children to a harsh reality.

It is estimated that in the Spanish State there are around 40,000 children in distress, of which 75% are more than seven years old. Many spend much of their childhood in centers, due to the tendency to institutionalization that characterizes the protection system of the Spanish State, a fact linked by many authorized voices with the lucrative business of juvenile centers. Another part passes to fostering families and, in a smaller percentage, they are adopted. Although there are more children than parents and juvenile centers are full, waiting lists for national adoptions range from five to nine years.

The system of protection in general, "and adoption in particular," were analyzed in 2009 and 2010 by a special committee of the Senate, which, after having experts from the field, including organizations such as Prodein or Amnesty International, issued 31 recommendations suggesting modify the protection system to improve and guarantee the well-being of children and families, and promote the agility, efficiency and coordination of all procedures.

They pointed out then, in November 2011, "the absence of common indicators that allow a rigorous evaluation of the different protection measures" and "the lack of data that allows having an X-ray of the system to be able to evaluate it". His work should be reflected in the future reform of the Law on Minors, which was paralyzed with the change of legislature, but which gives more power to technical staff. However, in this commission there was no voice in cases in which the administration withdraws, mistakenly, the children of their families.

Now some 500 families mired in a legal and administrative nightmare, grouped in the association Aprodeme, aim to make their cases visible through a lawsuit that points to the heart of the child protection system.

The Calvary of Francisco Cárdenas began in 2009, the day that, cited by the Catalan social services, came with which three years ago was his adopted daughter and had to leave without her. It had been three years, before having with him Gemma - fictitious name - between suitability reports, paperwork and waiting, until in 2006 they delivered the girl, of six months.

But Francisco and his then wife, Carolina Lapuente, finally ended their relationship in 2009. In fact, Francisco maintained a stable relationship with another person, Anabel, who in turn had two daughters. A fact that the Administration considered, together with a nervous episode starring Carolina Lapuente, a "risk indicator", according to the notification of the Catalan Institute of reception, which could only be appealed by judicial means. The assertion would be impossible to challenge.

The power of the decisions of the technicians is one of the issues that Aprodeme denounces, which requests that the declarations of abandonment be returned to the judicial scope, where they were already before the approval of the Child Protection Law of 1989. They propose, given the proliferation of cases, the creation of special courts, as is already the case with gender violence. "Poor you as in an interview you tell the technicians something that sounds inconvenient," says Cardenas, "because that starts to run from report to report and is reproducing."

"It must be the judge, based on a contradictory procedure, who decides to remove the child from his family, even if it is provisional," he maintains. Although the girl had been with her adoptive parents for three years, she still did not appear in the registry as her daughter, something that Cardenas did not consider relevant until it was too late. The diligence and speed in the procedures is another of the requests of the association.

Since that ill-fated day, Cárdenas has been at the full disposal of Social Services in order to investigate their environment, work, family, school, friends and everything they deem appropriate. Appearances, search for a legal representative, visits to the Sindic de Greuges [defender of the Catalan people] -which reported his case in the 2010 annual report-, to political groups ... Everything was in vain.

In June 2009 the trial came, in which he failed to recover his daughter. Today the case is in the Constitutional because Cardenas believes that his right to a defense has not been respected. He himself has related his journey in the book is my daughter, who hopes that Gemma can read someday.

This case seems to be, judging by the dossier handled by Aprodeme, one of many. In the collection of data to present the demand appear many more, and in many cases it is families who lose their children because they are poor, such as Anabel Molina and Jesús Chacón, who when they lost their jobs or benefits, lost their children. children, declared in distress.

When the Administration withdraws children, in most cases they go to juvenile centers whose cost, with an average of 3,800 euros per month, is borne by the Administration itself. Many families wonder why these funds are not intended to alleviate the situation that has taken their children. In 2011, the Ombudsman outlined her concern "with regard to the prevention of situations of risk and neglect of minors", a recommendation that is timely at a time when 2,267,000 children live below the poverty line .

"We did as our parents would have done"
Monike and Ferdinand are Cameroonians and reside in Cantabria. 'They lost' their son W. in 2009. They had taken him to the emergency room due to a broken leg, which led to the activation of the protocol established for cases of abuse.

A social services technique produced a report that led to the declaration of W. in distress and that has never been able to be challenged. W is in a host family. The endorsements of the Sisters of Charity, who manage the Economic Kitchen, the psychological counter-reports, the testimonies of the child's teachers, the social worker of the town in which they reside, the support of neighbors, etc., have not helped. The couple has very limited resources, but they have used them in their struggle, which paints badly. The civil trial is about to close, and now they face a criminal trial with five domestic violence charges.

In the civil trial, the prosecutor came to accuse Monike of attempted poisoning because one day, while W. was disheveled, his mother gave him - "as our parents would have done", explains Monike-, a spoonful of palm oil. They fear now that they take away their other son, two years old.