Madrid, 6th May
It all began in 2015 with three words from my three-year-old daughter. I was giving her a bath, when she suddenly turned to me and said: “Daddy touched me.”
I was happily married at the time, my other child was four months old. I spent the next two and a half months terrified, lying in bed shaking, not knowing if I’d wake up in the morning. I wanted to catch him, to find evidence. I finally decided to report him and then left.
After I informed the authorities of my suspicions that my daughter might be suffering sexual abuse, it was arranged that my children would see their father during supervised visits at a fixed meeting point. They denied a restraining order.
During these visits, my daughter would have panic attacks. So, they suspended her visits but forced me to still bring my son. In 2018, following a hospital referral, I was obliged to report to the authorities that there was a possibility that my son may have suffered abuse from his father during one of these visits. But my complaints of alleged sexual abuse were dismissed.
In 2018, a protection order was issued, suspending all visits and communication between father and children. The court concluded that the evidence was consistent in suggesting abuse, but that didn’t prevent the same court, with a different presiding judge, from ordering a change of custody in favor of the parent under investigation in February 2020.
My children were subsequently taken away from me. My youngest, who was four at the time, was given to his father. My oldest, who was seven, was sent to a foster home because she refused to stay with him.
I call it a triple removal: my two children were taken away from me, and a brother and sister were separated from each other, under the accusation that I was manipulating them to turn them against their dad. My daughter was held in a center for nearly ten months, unable to communicate with me.
After this, I had zero contact with my youngest for two years, and with my oldest for another six months after that. Then, for two and a half years, I saw them separately for an hour every two weeks.
In May 2023, I was tried for kidnapping. Their father reported me for handing the children over 14 days late. I was acquitted by the judge but perhaps only because a trial observation was set up, and several lawyers and the media attended.
I’ve had up to 14 open criminal cases. I have liens, I’m ruined. Right now, even though I’m still without custody, I’m so convinced that the system is failing and won’t change that I’m not going to face a judge and go through litigation. It drains me emotionally and financially, and in the end, it serves absolutely no purpose.
I have a certificate as a victim of gender-based violence that recognizes that I have been a victim of institutional violence. It’s a certificate from the Institute of Women in Catalonia, which recognizes that I have been subjected to False Parental Alienation Syndrome (A controversial theory proposed by American psychiatrist Richard Gardner, according to which one parent (usually the mother) manipulates the children into rejecting the other parent (usually the father), without any real cause, ed.) which is prohibited by Catalan Law. I have suffered institutional violence in all forms.
That’s why, in 2018 or 2019, a group of women and I set up the network of Protective Mothers. Our only goal was to be connected and be able to act collectively and anonymously to avoid retaliation.
We created initiatives like a shadow report that we submitted to the CEDAW (the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, ed.). A study published by the Ministry of Equality called “Institutional Violence Against Protective Mothers”, has also been important for us.
Since then, there’s been more visibility at a collective level; the network helps us ensure that at least some institutional support is given. Now we’re protective mothers and we’re labeled as such, although this doesn’t protect us in any way, rather it incites retaliation and endless abuse.
To this day, I can only visit my children every other weekend and for half of the holidays. I still don’t have custody, which means the estrangement continues. Emotionally, I’m devastated. Living in a state of apathy is the only way I can go on. And my health suffers, too, because while the children are young, the struggle never ends.
