Emigrating is always a difficult experience, but it becomes even more complicated if you don't know anyone in the country you're going to, if the language and customs are different, and if you're only fifteen years old, the journey is in a small boat, and you can't swim. But that's not all: when you arrive at your destination, you discover that nothing was as easy as it seemed and that paying back the money you borrowed for the journey will be nearly impossible.

Sitting on a bench facing Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, Youssef Benkhay recounts his life story, from leaving Aitaddou Zaguura at age 16 to now, at 24, about to complete a vocational training course in electrical, gas, and plumbing installation and working at the Foundation's social enterprise. "Learning the language, going back to school, finding myself in a place so different from my village of 20 houses in the Sahara, being far from home," the young man explains when asked about the difficulties he has faced to finally have a more or less stable future.

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.

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 Minister of Social Rights, Mònica Martínez Bravo, has admitted that the department she heads was operating until 2023 with a great lack of resources, both human and technical, which has led to part of the problems in relation to the economic benefits This was denounced by the Audit Office and detailed by Ombudsman Maria Àngels Cabasés in Parliament on Thursday. "The benefits were managed with software equivalent to a notepad; the scope of the benefits was designed without sufficient technical rigor," said Martínez Bravo, who took advantage of her speech before the parliamentary committee to announce that they will promote debt forgiveness for young people in former care who improperly received financial benefits. This announcement by the minister came after Cabasés presented 27 conclusions stemming from the audit of the department's accounts, which concluded that almost 168 million euros were paid improperly between 2016 and 2024. However, according to the minister, 70 million euros of those 168 million euros have already been recovered, and the majority—up to 90%—will eventually be repaid.

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 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.

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