The center is running for migrant girls who are victims of violence. A house in the countryside hosts since March adolescents threatened with trafficking and forced marriages.
Amina, fictitious name, fled from her family to avoid a forced marriage with a man who
almost three times the age. The teenager, aged 16, left the Moroccan coast in Patera, arrived in Algeciras and then traveled to Barcelona, where she explained her situation in a police station.
Amina is one of the twelve minors who live in the first emergency center in Catalonia specialized in serving girls who have suffered traumatic migratory processes, a new equipment installed in a house in the countryside, in the province of Barcelona.
Migrant Centre Running Migrant Violence Victims
A teenage girl ran away from home to avoid a forced marriage to a man almost three times her age
Between the last months of January and April, a total of 791 minors have arrived in Catalonia, raising to 4,133 the people supervised by the General Directorate d'Atencio a la Infància y l'Adolescència (DGAIA). Although children (4,024) are the vast majority; girls (109) are on the rise. Between January and April there were 41, more than double that during the same period of 2018. "We lacked a resource designed for victims of trafficking, forced marriages and for those who escape male violence, but if there are free places also we serve other minor migrants there, "explains Georgina Oliva, Secretary of Infància, Adolescència i Joventut de la Generalitat.
The house currently houses twelve girls between 14 and 17 years old, most of them from Morocco; from Congo-Kinsasa (1); Congo-Brazzaville (1); Gambia (1), and Romania (1). Amina is one of three young women who have explained that they suffered family pressure to marry by force, in their case with a 45-year-old man.
The house currently houses twelve girls between 14 and 17 years old
Esmeralda Romero, the educational coordinator of this project, managed by Fundació Idea, indicates that they suspect that two others were sexually abused in their country and that they could have fallen into the hands of trafficking gangs here. Both landed alone and with false documentation at the El Prat airport, where they were intercepted by the police that referred them to the DGAIA. Another minor was rescued from an abusive boyfriend who had her held.
Romero concretizes that currently six of the twelve adolescents who live in this center respond to the profile of victims of trafficking and sexual violence. Away from the city, in a discreet enclave to preserve their security, they try to put their lives in order with the help of a team of educators and a psychologist, while they learn the language and decide their immediate future. After six months to a year, they will be transferred to other DGAIA infrastructures or to a flat. "It is also expected that they will live with a relative, almost all have an adult reference in a European country," Romero adds.
Some want to continue their journey to France, Belgium and even the United States. Others consider that the journey has culminated in Catalonia.
Once installed in this house in the middle of nature, the first step is to know the reasons that have pushed them to leave and establish a therapeutic plan, in the case that is necessary, and training to promote their autonomy when they reach 18 years. "One of the problems is getting their documentation, which usually takes at least a year, until they do not have it, they can not opt for the official educational offer and a job," Romero explains.
In these first two months of operation of the center, the routine has been to follow a literacy course, attend crafts workshops and practice sports, as well as collaborate in cleaning and cooking. This Tuesday, after her Spanish class with the social educator and pedagogue Fatima Zghouri, one of her teachers, they got involved in playing soccer and volleyball.
In the kitchen, one of them attended the advice of Eva, the governess, to prepare the food, based on salad, lentils and fish. Only two gave good account of lunch, the rest follows Ramadan and until after nine o'clock at night they do not taste a bite. "Then they get up at four to eat and go back to sleep," says Eva, whom they call Mother Eva.
The involvement of the City Council of the locality in which they are found has been vital for this initiative to work, points out the director of the Idea Foundation, Loli Rodríguez, who points out that there are few children traveling to Europe against their will, pushed by their families "We had a thirteen-year-old boy," he says, "who, embracing an educator, crying, begged his parents to go home. They said no. "