Camila, Argentina who succeeded in having the Community of Madrid condemned for racial harassment at school

Camila says yes, this time she wants to talk. She is 14, with white painted fingernails and bushy, arched eyelashes. At the age of 13, a court recognized her as “anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, nightmares, social problems, mistrust”. caused by bullying of a racist nature. The judge held the Community of Madrid responsible, for the first time in Spain, for the lack of action at the school where Camila attended primary school.

“As a mother, the recognition of righteousness healed me, in part. The fight was not in vain. It set a precedent. It’s a phrase that has never been said so far. Racist bullying, that is, based on the color of the victim’s skin. That all that we’ve been through to be recognized is healing, that helps. But we still have a long process, ”he said. Bugle Argentina’s Petra Ferreyra, Camila’s mother, who has lived with different shades of discrimination for years.

Because she must have suffered it in her own flesh when, at the age of 9, her family left Argentina to settle in Spain, where she became the “sudaca”. Or when, already in Madrid, she fell in love with Leo, that black dominican classmate With whom he started a family: They married at the age of 18 and had two daughters, Camila, 14, and Naomi, 9.

They live in the district of Pilar, one of the urban centers which in the 1980s had the highest population density in Europe: the monoblocks housed around 235 people per hectare.

The most profitable school in the neighborhood – and one of the most sought after in Madrid – is Cardenal Herrera Oria, where to go to class has become a torment for Camila.

“They blamed her. They told him at school that he didn’t know how to defend himself. It was very cruel “said Petra.

The insults and contempt for Camila’s skin color or curly hair that Cardinal Herrera Oria tried to downplay as “Boy thing” cost the work of the school principal, a single court decision against the Community of Madrid and the payment of an allowance of 7,500 euros to the family.

“This resulted in a ridiculous financial sum. We are still waiting for moral reparation, a letter in which they admit the damage they caused to my daughter, but the law of silence reigns ”, laments Petra.

“He left the exams on target, he didn’t concentrate. Say again”, Petra lists the test of the adolescent who is currently in the second year of ESO (compulsory secondary education).

The judgment of the administrative litigation court number 34 of the Community of Madrid declared that “neither the management of the center nor even the teaching staff inquired about what was really going on, try to relativize the problem to children’s things, classified, in the hearing document, as “specific normal events within the school” ”.

“I don’t like to talk about Camila as a ‘victim’. She is a survivor who can now help other children know how to cope, ”her mother says.

And she explains why she and her husband decided to take Camila’s suffering to court: “It was emotionally draining and we wanted to show that a situation that should not be normalized should not be normalized –He says-. We had a duty and a commitment, as parents and as a family, to try to show that what had happened was not normal, once the scale and extent of the damage. to Camila were perceived on a psychological level. There was a more profound consequence than we thought. Things happened that we didn’t even know. “

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed, in 1966, March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He did so to remember that that day in 1960, South African police fired at a peaceful protest and killed 69 people demonstrating against apartheid law in Sharpeville, South Africa.

Petra and Camila are encouraged to tell their own story of the pain caused by xenophobia in Spain and recommend, so that other families do not experience the ordeal they have suffered due to their skin color: “Let them talk, let them tell what happens to them at school -Camila says-. Children must speak. Don’t stay silent because sometimes not speaking becomes a big mess ”.

“It’s also important that parents listen to their children,” Petra adds. He tends to normalize, to minimize, to say, “You will have done something to make this happen to you.” “Along with other moms who suffer from racial bullying, Petra founded the platform Suspenso al Racismo (@suspensoracismo): “To make visible and make viral what many children are going through, ”he explains.

Cases

Six months after the conviction that condemned the Community of Madrid for not having prevented Camila from being attacked because of the color of her skin, the Madrid Minister of Education and Youth, Enrique Ossorio, published the IV Annual report on school coexistence and bullying.

According to the official study, in July 2020, Madrid had reduced cases by 60 percent reported bullying as a result of their plan to eradicate it in the classroom. And that the number of cases reported to the Education Inspectorate increased from 179 registered in the 2015/16 academic year, to 105 registered in the 2018/19 academic year.

“The overall percentage of potential bullying has decreased in our region, increase from 3% in the 2015/16 academic year to 1% in the 2018/19 academic year, which represents a decrease of 66.6%, the report says. Among the cases detected by the Education Inspectorate, during the 2018/2019 academic year, harassment occurred in physical spaces 86.67% of the time, while cyberbullying occurred in the remaining 13.33%. Specifically, the Community of Madrid will not allow the use of cell phones in classrooms of schools and institutes. “

Petra Ferreyra, however, has another opinion: “The protocol of school bullying of the Community of Madrid indicates that in the profile of the passive victim, one of the reasons for a possible assault is that it is different from the homogeneity of the victim. group. In these same words, what is done is not to recognize the heterogeneity of the group, the diverse mix of ethnicities, genres, ”he says.

“Spain is quite late in terms of racist intimidation. There are no real statistics. There is no legislation that protects victims – he assures -. The protocols are always in the hands of the educational centers, which are judge and party. There is no objectivity. “In terms of the protocols against racial harassment, the sentence did not change anything,” said Petra, with disappointment.

However at home, indoors, Petra and her husband Leo celebrate that today when Camila looks at herself in the mirror, she can say, “I see a teenage girl. That as a child she did not like his hair or his color and over time, she adapted to her way of being, she started to feel what she is and now I think she is doing very well ”.

Madrid. Corresponding