Families for whom the Generalitat opens an investigation for the abandonment of underage children will have free legal assistance from the moment the administrative procedure begins. This is one of the proposals put forward by the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion within the reform of the child protection system announced a year ago in which professionals from different sectors have participated. In fact, a large part of the demands from the legal sector (lawyers and prosecutors) have been incorporated, which at some point also coincided with affected families in criticizing that the withdrawal of custody is a non-transparent process.

The 13-year-old girl who was the victim of a massive pedophilia ring operating from Barcelona while under the supervision of the former Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) "very possibly" suffered more abuse than has been documented. This is the conclusion of the investigating judge following the completion of the judicial investigation, which has been divided into three parts due to the scale of the case. There is also another victim, a 14-year-old boy. The first two parts were already before the Barcelona Provincial Court awaiting trial, and in the first The prosecution has requested 107 years in prison for the leader of the schemeNow, the investigating judge is prosecuting Teófilo, the 45-year-old electrician, for the third time. He already faces up to 107 years in prison for producing child pornography, primarily through the assault of a vulnerable minor. The second person charged in this third part of the investigation is a man from Madrid, currently imprisoned in Aranjuez, who allegedly participated in at least one of the assaults. The Barcelona Court of Instruction Number 7 has taken statements from all parties involved and analyzed various electronic devices, mainly belonging to Teófilo. The investigation concludes that between 2020 and 2021, this defendant contacted several men to arrange meetings at his apartment in the Raval neighborhood so they could have sex with the minor. The investigating judge notes that the girl was below the age of consent, and therefore it is "irrelevant whether or not the minor consented to sexual relations," and these are in any case sexual assaults." The judge cites video footage showing him assaulting the minor, sometimes with other men, or recording the assaults. Twenty-one video files were found from just one assault in which both Teófilo and the defendant participated, which took place in Madrid. "It is possible that more sexual abuse of the minor occurred." In fact, this conclusion is drawn from conversations the suspects had among themselves, recovered during the investigation, in which they "clearly discuss having or having had sexual relations with the minor." However, there is no photographic evidence of these assaults, and the minor does not describe them. Only the main suspect has been identified, and all of this has led the investigating judge to close the investigation against nine of the suspects.

A young woman who was formerly under the guardianship of the Generalitat (Catalan government) has had to wait up to five years to receive her orphan's pension payments in her account.former DGAIA –currently converted into DGPPIA– saved until reaching the age of majority. The young woman is now twenty-three and has suddenly received 15,000 euros, but hers is not the only case of unjustified delays in this group of young people.

Bakary and Lassana were minors, and the Catalan government (Generalitat) caused them to end up on the streets by claiming they were adults. Now, the courts have ruled in favor of the two Gambian boys. The age tests carried out by the Public Prosecutor's Office to determine their age, which led the former Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) to expel them from children's centers, were invalid. Lassana and Bakary's are just two cases. But there are many more scattered throughout the region. In the city of Girona, there are already two other court rulings, and in La Garrotxa, for example, there have been about ten in recent months.

They were called "the Erasmus" because they were different from the others. unaccompanied foreign minors who arrive by boat. Perhaps because they had an expensive phone or because of the stories they told. Finally, the nickname given to them by the National Police has turned out to be true because a fraud has been uncovered in Tarragona in which several parents abandoned their children so that the latter would declare themselves abandoned and could enter the protection system. At the moment, there are thirty parents arrested and 22 of these children have returned to their biological family, although the investigation is still open.

Parliament on Tuesday set up a commission of inquiry into irregularities at the DGAIA (Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care) between 2011 and 2025, which the House of Representatives unanimously approved in July. Following a trickle of media reports about the agency's poor performance, benefits improperly paid to young people who were formerly in care, and the maintenance of ghost squares In centers, the PSC, ERC, and Comuns promoted the creation of the commission, chaired by Socialist MP Jordi Riba and with Republican Anna Balsera as vice-president. In the distribution of positions on the table, Junts has been assigned the secretariat, which is held by Maria Àngels Plans. In principle, the deputies will have to present their conclusions before the end of the year.

The Prosecutor's Office has asked the Court of Auditors to open an investigation into the scandal of the extinct General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA). The objective, as has been advanced The National and sources from the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed to ARA, is to clarify whether the agency dependent on the Department of Social Rights incurred "possible accounting liability" for irregularities in the payment of economic and housing benefits to young people who were formerly in care. All this, after the Audit Office detected more than 167 million unduly paid in the set of benefits between 2016 and 2022. Of these, 4.7 million corresponded to the undue benefits for young people who were formerly in care, which the Government has approved condone This Tuesday, a decision agreed upon between the PSC, ERC, and Comuns.

Shortly before turning 18, Nico (a pseudonym) applied for the emancipation benefit that young people who have left care are entitled to when they reach the age of majority to ease their transition into adulthood, considering that most lack the emotional or financial support of their families. The process took more than a year, to the point that, with no other source of income, he had to put his studies on hold and go to work.

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) arrested a 23-year-old man in Olot on Tuesday for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor living in a Generalitat (Catalan Government) Residential Educational Action Center (CRAE). The assault occurred around 1:00 a.m. Friday morning during the Olot Tura festivities. Everything suggests that more than one person could be involved, although sources with access to the case indicate that the attack was allegedly perpetrated by a single person.

That afternoon I had an exam, and I was clinging to the classic last-minute review, the kind where you trust your memory will beat time, racing against the clock to record content you haven't managed to retain in weeks. Amidst messy notes and half-dried highlighters (the second-to-last exam of the course), I received a call from L., and, between somics and broken words, I made out: "Social Rights" - "email" - "€36,000" - "I don't know how" - "I called."

The idea of professionalizing foster care has come to an end. The Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has decided to close the Specialized Family Foster Care Program (AFE-EP), a pilot program inspired by the experience established over the past two decades in the Basque Country. The goal was to remove children between the ages of 7 and 18 with serious behavioral or mental health disorders from the centers under the care of the Generalitat (Catalan Government) so they could grow up in a home that would not only offer them love but also intensive care. Of the four families that were in the program, three are determined to continue, while the fourth child is about to move to another family. The decision was made for "administrative reasons," explains Elena Lledós, director of the Catalan Institute for Foster Care and Adoption (ICAA), who does not reveal whether it will be resumed later.

The Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has described as a "cordial" meeting held this Wednesday by the regional minister, Mònica Martínez Bravo, with five spokespersons for the young people who have been placed in care and whom the Generalitat is demanding to be treated. return between 12,000 and 36,000 euros for alleged "improper payments". At the meeting, which took place early this morning in Parliament, the minister apologized for all the suffering and commotion caused to the group by sending the letters and also expressed her willingness to "support" them in the process of providing the required documentation within the ten-day period. For her part, the ombudsman has requested approval for the forgiveness of these debts, as was already done with the recipients of the guaranteed citizen income.

Still reeling from the shock, a group of young people who had been placed in care gathered this Monday in front of the Directorate General for the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents (DGPPIA), which replaces the DGAIA, to denounce the "defenselessness" they face due to the claim for the return of thousands of euros for alleged improper payments of benefits. In some cases, this would mean returning more than 36,000 euros..

More than a hundred young people who were formerly under the care of the Generalitat (Catalan government) have complained of feeling like the scapegoat for poor management by the administration and for the Audit Office's criticism of the €167 million in social benefits paid to people who no longer met the requirements. As reported by ARA, the Directorate General for the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents (DGPPIA) has begun to investigate the matter. Send hundreds of these children messages demanding thousands of euros for "undue non-payments" and gives them ten days to present their allegations. These amounts exceed 10,000 euros, and in many cases even 30,000.

The General Directorate for the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents (DGPPIA, which replaces the DGAIA) has begun sending emails to young people who have left care to claim alleged "undue payments" of the benefits to which, by law, they are entitled from the age of majority until the age of 23. According to ARA, "hundreds" have been sent and the amounts claimed amount to more than 10,000 euros and, in some cases, the figure exceeds 36,000 euros. These messages are sent just two weeks after the The Audit Office estimates undue non-payments at 167 million euros. granted by the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion to some 230,000 families, of which 4.7 million (2.8%) corresponded to those given to young people who had spent part of their childhood in the care system. They are demanding around 30,000 euros. "I wanted to reassure him by telling him it must have been a mistake," explains the 22-year-old. "They're demanding that I be a high school student and I haven't had any absences that long, and I don't have any negative reports from my mentor," she tells this newspaper indignantly. "It seems like they're going to screw the weakest of us by putting spokes in our wheels; "Who can return these amounts?" asks the girl, who claims cases with "exaggerated amounts" have caused these young people to become nervous and have made their phones and WhatsApp messages explode. The refund file, once the review process is complete, must be reimbursed by the interested party. Nor will they understand that they have ten days from receiving the email to make the relevant allegations and submit the documentation. "Many will be left as true defaulters," she laments.

In the report, Ombudsman Maria Àngels Cabacés had found irregularities in the collection of the former care benefit from young people who were working or living outside of Catalonia, criteria that exclude them from being eligible for the aid. She attributed these improper payments to the department's own technological deficiencies in updating the beneficiaries' data and to the fact that it does not share data with the Treasury or Social Security. She recalculated the amount of the benefit she should have received. In response, she claims, she received a "you continue collecting the benefit and you'll notify the Treasury Department next year's tax return." They were unable to survive, unaware that, once they receive the benefit, since they already receive a salary, they will not be entitled to collect it, or at least not in full. She has a certified receipt.

]]>

Very rarely does the decision to remove custody reach the courts, and when it does, the ruling almost always favors the administration. Only 4% of biological families who have custody removed DGPPIA (the acronym for the General Directorate for the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents, which replaces the DGAIA))withdraws guardianship of the children They appeal against the administrative measure that in many cases means that the child must be admitted to a foster home or live with uncles or grandparents. And, according to data from the DGAIA, in nine out of ten cases they lose the legal battle because the judge upholds the decision of a but this is a snapshot that coincides with the most recent data provided by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ): of the 10,000 withdrawals of guardianships that are issued throughout the State each year, a thousand families resort to the courts and only in 2% of cases are the destitutions revoked by Marta Tortosa and counselor of the Catalan Bar Council (Cicac), it must be taken into account that if there are so few judicial resources, it is because the affected families "are vulnerable, without resources," and cannot afford a lawyer to file a claim. "Court lawyers can only intervene when necessary, and an administrative procedure against the DGAIA is not considered that," he points out in an interview with ARA. Regarding the decision-making process for withdrawing custody, Gellida criticizes: "The administration investigates the matter, issues the resolution, and also executes the agreement. In a state of law, we have always kept in mind that the law is made by one person, executed by another, and the one who convicts is the judiciary. Even in the criminal sphere, there is one judge who instructs and another." He concludes: "At the DGAIA, they do everything; what we want is for there to be a separation of powers."

]]>

The Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Mònica Martínez Bravo, defended this Wednesday in Parliament the capacity of the DGAIA to protect the minor sexually exploited by a pedophilia network, although she also admitted that she hadn't done enough to spare him the pain. With the report prepared by the department's legal services, the minister appeared before the committee at her own request, not with the intention of "finding culprits," she clarified, but with the desire to rekindle a system that "many years ago" needed a refoundation"The system protected the minor as best it could, and despite the support of professionals, it failed, and nothing can compensate for the damage done to her during her adolescence," she stressed.

]]>

The Department of Social Rights improperly paid €167.56 million in economic benefits during the 2016-2024 period. This is confirmed by a report from the Audit Office released this Wednesday, which indicates that these improper payments "are not only due to administrative errors" but also to "structural problems of transparency and governance." Some of these payments, unclaimed and time-barred due to the administration's inaction in monitoring and controlling them, have resulted in "effective damage to public finances" and, therefore, could give rise to "acts that are administratively and judicially prosecuted." In this case, which primarily affects the guaranteed citizen income and long-term care benefits, legal proceedings could be opened against those responsible for improperly authorizing these payments. For its part, the Department of Social Rights maintains that €156 million of the €167 million has already been claimed from the beneficiaries of these benefits.

]]>

A new one DGPPIA (the acronym for the General Directorate for the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents, which replaces the DGAIA)) less privatized and with greater participation by workers in centers for children under the care of the Generalitat (Catalan government). These were two of the demands raised this Tuesday by the CGT and CATAC unions at a rally outside the institution's headquarters. They also denounced the reform plans presented by the Ministry of Social Rights and Inclusion as nothing more than "a smokescreen" to keep things as they are. The event brought together fifty educators, one day before Minister Mònica Martínez Bravo appears before a parliamentary committee to explain the changes to the system.

]]>

The news about the failure of the DGAIA (General Directorate for Child and Adolescent Care), part of the Department of Social Rights, to adequately fulfill its responsibilities has shaken public opinion and led to nominally radical reactions from the responsible department's counselor. Throughout this very sad episode, I have missed some elements of realism, which have sometimes crept in through the cracks in the news and interviews. I am referring to the complaint—or denunciation, to be precise—of the appalling working conditions of the people entrusted with the extremely delicate task of caring for the children and adolescents who have ended up under the guardianship of the DGAIA.

]]>