I have been through various procedures, testimonies and situations that I have lived with different families, observe real concerns, dread and terror caused appoint this subject.

As I explained in a previous article, the acronym DGAIA respond to the Directorate General of Care for Children and Adolescents, being a public administration under the Department of Social Welfare and Family in Catalonia, being made of it the plan protection policies to childhood and adolescence, services and resources for the protection and powers in the field of helplessness in childhood.

Just look at the social networks, the reports of the Ombudsman, newspapers or reports by Amnesty International, to realize that something is wrong in the system of child protection, there are multiple signs that warn us that it is making a malpractice which violates in many cases severely, the Rights of the Child, their families and various international treaties.

The Administration has authority in relation to administrative rulings of neglect of minors, acting input as part and judge, but it is not unusual find records where, without any technical justification, nor proven assessment of the family situation of the child or minimally evidence corroborating what they collect these resolutions, decide to issue a resolution of helplessness.

The big problem comes when parents turn to the courts for justice: judges and prosecutors give credence to what he says DGAIA, even if such events do not come supported by evidence, reports, documents or sufficient grounds, and this is where scandalously the greatest injustice, with damage to children who have not yet been evaluated occurs.

And we wonder that many parents dread having to appoint DGAIA?

In many reports to parents diagnosed mental illness, without even having visited, conducting free, invented and contradictory diagnoses, leading to any neophyte on the subject to see clearly that they are false. Most disconcerting of the situation is that such technical / as not identified by name or number of referee, leading us to question whether these alleged professionals have the appropriate qualifications.

Just over a year ago came out in the media, the problem of child sexual abuse occurring in the CRAE – Residential Centre of Educational Action – and specifically spoke of known as Petit Príncep center, and its Director Elisa Trujillo, who says without any shame that social workers had no qualifications and DGAIA had not said anything. DGAIA meanwhile, runs off the bulk saying that in the specification companies (CRAE) present the contract to manage a center of public minors, not only do not question the wages they are attributed, but the fact that staff whether or not degree, it is an agreement between the company and the employee, regardless whether it is public money, it is Social Welfare pays companies.

Amnesty International has also echoed this situation denouncing centers in Catalonia under human rights of minors are violated, having presented a report in which testimonies of people who have lived in these centers are collected. DGAIA response has been limited to say that that is not true and cross the Amnesty International distorted and demagogic.

The Font Mop (CRAE), its Director Fina Moreno, center recognized in the media, without any remorse using containment measures with minors, including tying minors to adapted for this task chairs, also supplying drugs to minors, justifying it in order to avoid damage to third parties or self-harm, adding that such “treatments containment” are savvy Office of children and the Generalitat.

Gentlemen, apply these “treatments containment”, even if they want to justify them as a method or protocol educational correction and as much as after a medical exam at the least, to see that he has not been injured, are prohibited practices, which often are he has gotten out of hand.

The reality is that impunity of technical / as and the system DGAIA is complete and the judicial system as well as legal practitioners we must come together to end this dictatorial and partial system, suffice as an example the case of Nathalia M ., a mother who filed a complaint against DGAIA of Tarragona for falsifying documents to give the custody of a four year old girl to her father, accused in criminal proceedings for domestic violence. to DGAIA of crimes of corruption, influence peddling and document forgery by 8 techniques EAIA services Vendrell, legal father and territorial services were charged.

DGAIA declared the helplessness of the lower suspending parental authority to both parents, later granted interim custody to the father, despite his history of abuse, basing this decision on the minor had a speech delay whose origin was in a affective etiology, as well as a disruptive dynamics in the field of maternal family that the child was not preserved, reaching that conclusion without talking to the mother or value the extended family. A mother imposed a regime of restrictive day visits every two weeks, finally stopping it completely, not turning to see mother and daughter.

Subsequently, responsible for the resolution of helplessness recanted, saying he should not have attributed the blame for the delay in the talks from the small to the mother, it is a challenge to a specific disorder in language that affects him still living with his father . The DGAIA itself admits in its administrative record that the cause that once led to the abandonment never existed and therefore should not persist helpless situation, but has not returned to the child in the custody of the mother, and the lesser of 7 years still misses his mother because the suspension of the visits continue today … .but this case is not the only one, I know others, such as in EAIA-Mataro and DGAIA Barcelona, where there are similar cases to that of Nathalia M.

It is evident that when the “no smoke without fire”, many parents who denounced “arbitrary” in the performance of technicians to perform their reports, many parents who are demanding an impartial legal figure to mediate between what parents say and the version that gives the administration who makes decisions unilaterally with immediate execution, resulting damaged, often irreparably the rights of minors.

Do you really a judge or prosecutor may believe that a visitation of one or two hours a month with a parent is a child protection measure? Is it a viable regime visits so that a parent can exercise the proper role? Why these regimes visits to those parents who often oppose resolutions helplessness of their children are imposed? Is it feasible to give credibility to a technical report when it is established that ever visited the mother and maternal extended family?

Faced with this overwhelming reality, the judicial system must stretch quickly and apply the laws harshly, because how are you going to protect minors, if those who should protect them are the same, that in one way or another, contaminated with malpractice , technicians without qualifications and arbitrariness ?, the courts of Justice must act immediately, because the lack of control in the administration is what allows technicians can issue reports without anyone overseeing them anything, because they are friends of friends, protected or known someone who was part of the child protection system, directly or indirectly, or simply as a matter of prejudice.

Sara Benjelali

Attorney at Law