Last year in Spain, some 50,000 children were in state care – a high number that is largely a consequence of failures in the care system. In Spain, children can be taken into care as a precautionary measure, a step that is five times more frequent than in neighbouring France. The decision in Spain to remove children from their parents is made not by a judge but by social workers. However, it often becomes irreversible, meaning that those parents face a long battle to get their children back. Our correspondents investigate.
In this report, several families tell FRANCE 24 of the difficulties they encountered in getting back their sons or daughters. Although in Spain, a child cannot officially be removed on the grounds of household poverty, a troubling number of parents who denounce the system find themselves in that situation.
The decisions of social services can be heartbreaking for both the parents, who are often already financially weakened by a divorce, and their children, who mostly grow up in children's homes.
In Spain, 80 percent of care homes are privately run and some are currently under investigation following a series of scandals. In January 2020, 16 underage girls in a children's home on the island of Mallorca were even found to be part of a prostitution network.
Lawyers speak of their powerlessness in the face of social workers' decisions. Although the childcare system is regional, the problem is felt across the country. It may have its origins in 2006, when Spain was profoundly shocked by the case of Alba, a 5-year-old girl who was beaten by her stepfather and left for dead. She survived but is now quadriplegic. At the time, social services did not intervene, despite Alba being hospitalised several times after being beaten. They instead relied on the false testimony of the mother who systematically protected her husband, whom she knew to be violent. Both are still in prison.
This family tragedy deeply affected Spain and is no doubt prompting, 15 years on, a protective but sometimes abusive instinct on the part of decision-makers. They now prefer prevention to cure, even if it means taking children from their families on the basis of mere suspicion.
