SPAIN SENTENCED FOR FAILING TO RETURN A SAHRAWI GIRL TO HER MOTHER

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_30618.shtml


Strasbourg has ruled that Spain violated the mother's rights in failing to return the child after her summer holiday nine years ago
The European Court of Human Rights - EFE


A ruling from the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday sentenced Spain for violating the rights of a Sahrawi woman whose nine year old daughter was kept from returning to the camps in Tindouf, Algeria, after a summer trip to Spain to stay with a host family.

Saltana el Bardi arrived in Cartagena, Murcia for a two-month holiday in 2002, but stayed on after she was found to be suffering from health problems. El País reports that although her mother asked for her daughter to be returned home two years later, the Murcia regional government decided shortly after her request that they would take on the child’s guardianship.

The host family was awarded guardianship of the girl in 2007.

Strasbourg said in its Tuesday ruling that ‘The Spanish authorities did not put in sufficient effort in enforcing the right of the complainant for her daughter to return and violated her right to respect for a family life, as guaranteed by Article 8.’ The court noted, however, that ‘The passage of time, a consequence of the inertia of the Administration and the lack of coordination between the competent authorities, has made a major contribution to the youngster’s integration with her host family and in her daily life in Murcia’. They said it would now be difficult for her to return home to her mother.

Her mother, Knana Saleck Bardi, recognises that her daughter is now fully integrated into her life in Spain and Saltana, who is now 18 years old and has Spanish residency, will not be returning to the camps in Tindouf.

Spain had argued that there had been no family life between mother and daughter since 2001, when the woman is reported to have handed over her child to another in Tindouf as she was living in Mauritania at the time.

Knana Saleck Bardi will now receive 30,000 € compensation, and Spain has also been ordered to cover the costs of her defence

mara thon

I expect that the child in question would have been asked if she wanted to return to her Mother and her feelings were taken into consideration, well one hopes that is the case. I can't imagine leaving my own child with someone else and take two years to request her return.

But maybe the circumstances difficult in some way. After all - Algeira is a different place altogether.

I agree Angelique. As far as I can tell from the article the mother handed the daughter over and presumably the child settled very well with her foster family. Obviously it was thought that the child (as she was then) would not want to give up, what I presume was a very loving home, to go and live in a camp in Algeria. I imagine that now she is 18 years old she can make her own decisions and obviously that is what she has done.