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If he could speak to the judge of the Oliveira do Bairro Court who does not authorize him to spend Christmas with his mother, his grandmother and his great-grandmother, B. would tell him to “have a little heart.” The risk of causing a covid-19 outbreak in the home of at-risk youth does not appear to be a valid reason. “Just this weekend, did I go home and can’t go for Christmas? Am I going to watch the others go?
It is not a unique case. The judge of the Court of Oliveira do Bairro will have dictated the same fate to all the children and young people sheltered in childhood and youth homes whose case he evaluated. PUBLIC confirmed at least nine. The magistrate did not want to make statements, claiming that she had to comply with the duty of reserve that prevents her from issuing opinions on the cases, but, observing various orders, it turns out that the arguments are always the same. Also, in this case, the use of the “copy and paste” method from one process to another is understood. The family asks the court to authorize it. The Public Ministry proposes to reject, invoking the “pandemic context”, the “state of emergency”, “the serious risk of cases of covid-19 in foster homes, if young people and children move to different parts of the country and meet family and friends ”. The judge affirms that he agrees, “in its entirety”, and rejects the application presented.
The alert was launched by AjudAjudar – Association for the promotion of the rights of children and young people, born in the middle of the pandemic. In recent days he has received several complaints about children and young people without permission to return home at Christmas due to the “potential danger” that family life can pose when returning to the foster home, despite the fact that they are allowed to spend vacations and even weekends. week with the family.
“It is not only a lack of common sense, it is also ignorance of the applicable legal framework,” says Sónia Rodrigues, president of AjudAjudar. Nothing in the state of emergency decree or in the regulations issued by the General Directorate of Health prevents such coexistence. “Even the norms that prohibit movement between municipalities are not applicable in this context, insofar as they safeguard compliance with the coexistence established in the agreement to regulate parental responsibilities, and this exception should be extended to children with protective measures. , including residential care, under penalty of violation of the principle of equality ”.
To understand the degree of inequality that the decision introduces, it is necessary to take into account that each child has a process whose head is a Commission for the Protection of Children and Youth (CPCJ) or a family and juvenile court. Each household has children and / or youth referred by a variety of CPCJs and courts. And each court or CPCJ accompanies children and young people in different homes.
Let’s go back to the example of B. In the house where he lives, there is a child who does not have a safe family environment (nor is the possibility of spending Christmas with his family analyzed) and 19 who do: the seven who are in the process of Court do Oliveira do Bairro did not obtain authorization and the twelve with trials in other courts did.
“She is not right”
If he could talk to the judge, B. would tell him “that he is not right because the other courts have authorized the other boys to go home.” “It is not fair that some leave and others do not. It’s weird that you let me go home for the weekend and don’t let me go at Christmas. I have a family and I will take care of it. And, if necessary, I do the test. I already earn my money. I can pay.”
The 17-year-old admits that he did what he wanted, that he screwed up, that he missed classes, that he did not pick up books, that his mother had no hand on him. This is what led the court to take him away from his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother and put him there. That B. is back there. He works during the day as a welder and studies at night for a 9th grade equivalency. “I’m doing everything.” He wears a mask at work, a mask at school, a mask at the institution. “Christmas is a special time. My grandmother turns 25 on the 25th. My great-grandmother is 90 years old. Any slip, they can go … “
Between families, the same misunderstanding. “I went to court,” says F.’s 16-year-old father. “I put the cards for the boy to come on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The doctor received the letters saying that all the courts said yes, except that of Oliveira do Bairro and that this is justified by the pandemic ”. It seems absurd. “The child goes to school every day, one weekend a month he comes home. It does not fit in the head of those who do not come to spend Christmas with me ”.
The alternative that the court gives this father is to go to the institution to see his son on holidays, wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance and frequent disinfection. “The boy cannot come to spend Christmas with me and there are only two of us and I can go to spend Christmas with him and there will be many,” he continues. On second thought, the risk your child takes when he returns home is less than the risk he takes when he goes to the institution, and he goes there every Friday. “I think the judge has a duty to change his mind.”
The sense of injustice is even greater in foster homes where children or young people do not know anyone who has the same luck. In a house that welcomes girls, eight have a family background capable of receiving them for Christmas and only one has not been authorized to spend Christmas with her family, the only one who has a case in that court. The institution asked the judge to reconsider. In another house, which welcomes children and young people of various ages, only one girl with a lawsuit in that court has also been denied the possibility of spending Christmas with her family. The team is trying to make her understand that the judge made that decision based on what she believes is best for her.
“I know you have to be lucky in the family you are born into, I know you have to be lucky in the shelter, now you also have to be lucky in the region to which you belong”, reacts João Pedro Gaspar, researcher and Coordinator of the Support for Ex-Youth Hostels, supervises the reception in Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Lisbon and Oporto and does not know of similar situations. It seems too much. “If there is a risk that prevents you from returning home during the year, it also prevents you at Christmas. What it does not prevent during the year, it does not prevent at Christmas either ”.
It will not be a unique case. Sónia Rodrigues says that, in other parts of the country, some further north, others to the south, there are shelters that ask the judges of the family and juvenile courts to make these kinds of decisions. “Many times they are houses that belong to institutions with other competencies,” says this researcher, a specialist in residential care, who supervises several houses. They hide from the possibility of contagion among the elderly, which, in their opinion, does not reap. “There are rare interactions between children and the elderly. Employees circulate ”.
AjudAjudar is preparing an exhibition to present the President of the Republic and the parliamentary groups. And he regrets the lack of an Ombudsman for Children, who seems to him the appropriate interlocutor in cases like these.
The PUBLIC asked, email, the National Commission for the Promotion of the Rights and Protection of Children and Adolescents is aware of this or similar cases and how it corresponds to them. Until press time, there was no response.
