They take their children because he is "macho" and she "immature" – ElSol.com.ar – Diario de Mendoza, Argentina

Marcelino and Mari Carmen have two children in common but they are about to miss it. To be erased as parents, as if their birth, their sleep at three o'clock in the morning, sandwiches-snacks or the first "daddy" would never have existed. This decision was taken by the Social Services Department of the Junta de Castilla y León. She considers that Marcelino and Mari Carmen are not fit to be the parents of anyone, let alone to practice as such, and sent the children to an anonymous marriage in another province under pre-adoption, in the meantime confirmation of transit. When this is done, nine-year-old Alberto * and six-year-old Ana will lose their family name and form another family forever, despite the fact that Alberto and Ana continue to call Daddy. Marcellin and his mother, Mari Carmen. They have always expressed the desire to return home for a year and a half.

Psychologists, social workers, the person who welcomed the children for four and a half years, the current employers of Marcelino and Mari Carmen. All argue that both are ordinary people, balanced and capable of baduming their responsibilities. Mari Carmen has been working for a year in a house in Burgos, taking care of a 98 year old woman and her family is thrilled. Marcelino also takes care of his nonagenarian mother at home and is responsible for a job in a construction company in Vitoria. However, the social services consider that the couple constitutes a danger for the well-being and the safety of the children because of "psychic violence" in the form of lack of emotion, lack of encouragement and badism of the father's share, and "physical neglect" due to shortages. hygiene, poor nutrition and delays in medical care, according to a report from the technicians, given in the past to the smallest.

For these reasons, the children were declared in distress in July 2013 and parental guardianship was withdrawn, which came into effect in September. In five and a half years, Marcelino and Mari Carmen were unable to find their children, while they had not stopped fighting to recover them, including several legal proceedings in which minutes had been validated.

During each visit to the meeting point, which they never missed, they told their children that they loved them and that soon they would be together, they brought them gifts and school supplies. These visits lasted for two years were weekly and, since 2016, monthly, once social services had decided that adoption was the only way out of it. Space meetings once a month was aimed at weakening the bonds between parents and children, slowly killing mutual affection and paving the way for adoption.

Social Services argue that during all this time, Marcellin was not able to admit his sins. He never recognized that his children were helpless or malnourished at the time, nor softened his strong, rude and macho character (technicians consider his "traditional family concept with structured gender roles" inadequate) . In the eyes of the state, it is still not appropriate to raise their children and it is worth not to see them again.

The case of Mari Carmen is even more cruel: social service technicians have described her as intellectually limited ("her judgment capacity is reduced by instability and emotional immaturity") and she has been dismissed from the beginning to never again be able to exercise the mother of her children. for this supposed mental deficiency. The truth is that Mari Carmen suffers from a 67% hearing loss in one ear because of an explosion at her school when she was small and vision problems in one eye . There is no psychological report supporting an intellectual disability, only subjective criteria.

These statements are in contradiction with the report prepared by the Association for the protection of minors in separation of parents (Aprome), responsible for the regime of visits between parents and children. The social services rely on the report of their colleagues in Burgos to submit them for adoption, but the document does not seem to define at all. It highlights the parents' lack of hygiene and belligerent attitudes, including insults, with regard to the host family, but also includes phrases such as: "Minors receive their parents smiling and with love, especially with the father "; On occasion, the child expressed tears to his father who cried for wanting to be in the company of this ";" during the last months of intervention, it was observed that Don Marcelino had explained to his children that he loved them, that he would always be his father and that & # 39; it did not matter what was said to them ";" at the time of the farewell, the children said goodbye to their parents with affection, with kisses and hugs, especially Don Marcelino ".

What was the verdict behind all this? "Unable to return with their parents because they can not guarantee their safety and well-being". It was recommended to seek a "non-open" adoption, ie, a total absence of contact with the biological parents.

This traumatic measure was approved on June 21, 2017. Two days later, Alberto and Ana were registered in the register of minors likely to be adopted. Soon a family candidate came from another province. They began visiting them at the Burgos Refuge every week to begin pairing, and were then taken away in December of the same year. Since then, there has been no communication for a year and four months. Parents fear that the links will be broken forever, that the children, tired of so many swings, give up and declare that they are fine as they are if a technician or a judge asks them. The clock turns fast against the couple.

"I washed them, I treated them, I never missed food at home," Marcelino insists in the living room of his house, a large villa of 200 m2 and a garden of 500 m2 in Miranda de Ebro . Marcelino and Mari Carmen have been separated since 2015, largely as a result of the loss of guardianship. They do not even want to think about the day the adoption is confirmed. The two hang photographs of children who have screensavers on their phones and proudly show the children's picture gallery that Maria, the woman who has welcomed them for four years, sent them. Only the tenuous hope of kissing them one day prevents them from collapsing completely.