Rome, child in foster home, mother: "He wants to come back to me"

Rome. Child in foster home: mother launches appeal.

A never-ending story, that of the child taken from his mother on July 26th and placed in a family home at the gates of Rome.

The police officers of the mobile squad of the Viterbo Police Headquarters with a search and seizure order issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Rome, at the request of the ordinary prosecutor of Rome, as part of the investigations pending against the woman for child abduction, they broke into the house where C. and her son were with their grandparents on July 26. After having forcibly removed the minor without the presence of social workers and guardian or medical personnel, the mother was notified of the decree of the Juvenile Court: the child who suffers from epilepsy was taken away and placed in a family home on the outskirts of Rome.

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The decision was made by the court to have the child, who had ended up at the centre of a very long legal battle between the parents for custody, be taken away from his mother. Juvenile Court of Rome which in December 2020 appointed a guardian and a special curator for the child, arranging 'urgently' for his 'placement in a suitable family home, under the care of the competent social service', which 'may avail itself of the police force, if necessary'. As reported today by the Dire Agency.

The boy's seizures have always been kept under control by his mother with pharmacological therapy and an appropriate lifestyle. C. after seeing her son in a last video call a few days ago, told Dire: “My son is not well, he wants to come back to me, he asks to see me, he speaks badly, little as if he was blocked and now he is taking an antibiotic, he is in danger”. The month of August passed with continuous requests for information on the child's health, addressed to the guardian, to social workers and to the Juvenile Court of Rome, from the lawyers Ilaria Boiano and Teresa Manente di Difference Woman who follow the case of C. and other courageous mothers.

“This is an abnormal act” which the lawyers have challenged “before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The mother is not an abusive woman- Manente remembered– and there was also no assessment of the risk to the child's physical and psychological integrity that this forced removal, decided in the name of bi-parenting, has entailed and no judge has ever seen the child or heard the child. This is yet another provision that is based on an assessment by technical consultants (from 2016) who have assessed the mother as overprotective – stressed the lawyer Manente – and obstructive to the father-son relationship”.

The lawyers also reported a series of other critical issues that affected the child and his separation from his mother: “Only after 48 hours did the guardian ask for information on the dosages of the drugs” that the child takes for epilepsy, “the request for clarification on the personnel who administer the drugs has remained unanswered to date”. The lawyers, citing the International Charter of the Rights of the Child signed in New York in 1989, recalled that “only exceptional circumstances can lead to a breakdown of the family bond”.

“There is no prejudicial conduct or mistreatment” by mother C. towards her son and the decision of the authorities, the lawyers denounce, is the result of “serious prejudice of the subjects involved”.

The extra-family placement, the inadequacy of the structure that does not have health personnel, the limitation of mother-child contact are the key points on which the lawyers continue to invoke an urgent intervention by the Juvenile Court, requesting the access of a pediatrician, the return of the minor home and new investigations into the case through a medical-legal expert on the child's health and the intervention of the Guarantor of persons deprived of personal liberty has also been requested. The child, who due to his pathology has a 100% disability, was torn from his mother and taken away on board an ambulance. The mother can only visit him once a week. “My son,” C. reiterated, “is in danger, he wants to go home, to his life.”. What happened, once again, the lawyers declared: “It is a forced removal, to protect the rights of fathers, against children and mothers.”