July 2022. Laura lives alone in a room in a Barcelona hostel with her five-year-old son. Her economic situation is precarious and she subsists thanks to a job that forces her to be away from home for a few hours. During her workday, she asks a neighbor to look after the child while she is absent because there is no school in summer.
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The child is very active and one hot day he escapes from the neighbor. A while later, a Mossos d’Esquadra patrol finds the minor wandering alone in the street. After asking him where he lives, they go to his “home” and, not finding the mother, they hand him over to the Direcció General de Atenció a la Infància i la Adolescència (DGAIA) of the Generalitat. There, an official, without the mediation of a judge as the norm strangely continues to establish, decides to withdraw custody from the mother and grants guardianship to the administration. Hours later, he is admitted to a juvenile center 40 kilometers from the city. The desperate mother asks for help to get the minor back and the only support she receives is being able to visit the child one hour a week.
Were there really so many thousands of bad fathers and mothers in Catalonia?
A month later, the child participates in an activity at the guardianship center on the beach, the monitors get distracted and the minor almost drowns. He survived after four days hospitalized and intubated. Almost three years later, Laura was able to get her son back thanks to the help of an organization that supports the many families who unfortunately suffer these types of situations.
Just one year ago, the horrible case of a 12-year-old girl under the guardianship of the Generalitat who had been repeatedly raped by a man in Barcelona who also offered her to other pedophiles came to light. This depraved individual accepted an 83-year prison sentence last week for the execrable crime. This latest episode, among many others unexplained, blew up the DGAIA and uncovered enormous mismanagement in the care of minors in Catalonia thanks to the complaint of an employee of this public administration and a devastating report from the Sindicatura de Comptes.
That economic report brought to light an opaque scheme that moved millions of public euros in an uncontrolled manner and was sustained because officially, priority was given to removing guardianship of minors from thousands of fathers and mothers, reaching the striking point that in 2024, the number of children and adolescents under the custody of the Generalitat (8,977) exceeded that of prisoners in Catalan prisons (8,594). Are there so many bad fathers and mothers in Catalonia?
Behind this social anomaly was an economic explanation. The Generalitat pays between 4,000 and 6,000 euros per month for the guardianship of a minor, and that money is collected by the set of entities that work on behalf of the Govern in these tasks. Therefore, promoting public guardianship of minors became a good business for some, naturally, under the protection of legality.
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After the scandal discovered last year, the Generalitat decided to refound the DGAIA and rename it as DGPPIA (Direcció General de Prevenció i Protecció de la Infància i la Adolescència). In these last twelve months, the aforementioned scheme has begun to be discreetly dismantled because now the priority is to prevent minors from ending up under public guardianship by investing in prevention, in helping families with professionals who go to their homes with 24-hour care, offering them free lawyers, incorporating external experts so that it is not a single official who makes the decision to withdraw custody. This avoids suspicions and increases transparency guarantees.
Specialists from the public health sector have also been incorporated to prioritize the return of minors to their families more quickly, whenever possible. And, finally, a figure has been created who will listen to children and ensure their rights. The objective is to prevent helplessness by helping families and, in this way, begin to empty the reception centers.
That is, if what Laura suffered in 2022 were to happen now, the management should be very different. Before taking her son away and accusing her of being a bad mother, someone would analyze why that child was alone and surely, it would be concluded that this woman’s problem could be solved with the help of a babysitter for her son during her workday in summer. Most certainly, the cost of this measure would be much lower than the 4,000 euros per month that the Generalitat paid to the entities that guarded the child for almost three years in a center.
This new method of avoiding the withdrawal of custody whenever possible is good for families and bad for those who have legally profited from the previous system. Let’s hope that the new course leads the ship to a safe harbor and no one is tempted to boycott it.
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