"The DGAIA did everything possible to protect the minor, but it failed."
The Social Rights Councilor avoids pointing fingers in the case of the girl raped by pedophiles.
BarcelonaThe 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.
Without going into the minor's personal details, Martínez explained the role of the protection services at each stage, in a chronology that does not coincide with that of either the prosecutor's office or the former leadership of the DGAIA, to assess the "coordination" between all the professionals. According to her account, the minor began relations with the pedophile network before entering the protection system and that it was at school that "signs of sexual abuse" were detected, but not pedophilia. From there, the socio-educational commission—with basic social and educational services, pediatrics, and mental health—decided to urgently activate protective mechanisms, in work that the regional minister described as "impressive." A month later, it was decided that the girl would be placed under the care of the DGAIA (National Directorate of Public Health) and admitted to a center. Guardianship always remained with the parents, who had shown themselves to be involved and cooperative in the intensive work they were doing with social services to rectify the situation. The objective was to "preserve the bond" between the family and the child.
It wasn't until the girl was already hospitalized that the educators realized she had had contact with the pedophiles again during a few days' escape. Together with the child's mother, they decided to file a complaint with the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police). As a result of the police investigation, the network was dismantled. In addition to the minor protected by the DGAIA, there are also at least eleven more minor victims than those identified in the numerous images seized from the pornographic material ring.
The only criticism Martínez has raised regarding the intervention of the professionals involved in this case has been the decision to maintain custody and not increase the level of protection for the girl with a leave of absence order to remove the guardianship from the parents, which "was not executed." It was not even decided to place her in a CREI (National Commission for the Protection of Children and Adolescents), a specialized center for children with behavioral disorders. However, the doubts expressed have not yielded a verdict. Much less have any perpetrators been identified. "There is neither a specific error nor an easy solution. There is no specific error that, if resolved, could have prevented the case," asserted the minister, who expressed "impotence" for not having been able to prevent the minor's suffering.
Collaboration with Mossos d'Esquadra and artificial intelligence
In her speech, the regional minister insisted that cases like the minor's confirm that the DGAIA (General Directorate of Child Protection) needs a "re-establishment" of the line pioneered by the regional ministry to strengthen the protection of children when there is a suspicion of risks to their physical integrity or family negligence, in an attempt to prevent abandonment. In the last decade, the number of child risk cases has grown by 60%, but this increase has not been matched by an increase in staff, as reported by the workers themselves.
One of the measures previously announced is to expand the staff of the 44 EAIA (General Directorate of Child Protection) and strengthen the 513 teams of the Comprehensive Intervention Service (SIS, which promotes positive parenting, community work, etc.). According to the IVALUA institute, this has reduced the number of child admissions by 31%.
Another of the key measures for redesigning the new DGAIA is the creation of a permanent joint commission with the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) to monitor the activities of pedophiles online. In this regard, the minister has announced her support for initiatives by governments such as Spain and Italy to prohibit minors' access to pornography.
Furthermore, she also pledges to present, after the summer, a proposal to equalize the salaries of staff at private entities and foundations contracted by the DGPPIA with those of its own centers. Social workers complain that the job insecurity they experience directly impacts the functioning of the shelters and the system itself, as there is high staff turnover, making it difficult to establish a bond with the minors in their care.
