The Canarian Association for Intervention and Family, Educational and Psychosocial Mediation +Familia, the entity responsible for the Family Meeting Point of Lanzarote, has responded to information published by La Voz in which a mother, a victim of gender violence, denounced that the space is not suitable for her daughter with autism.
During an interview with La Voz, the mother denounced that the weekly visits of her three-year-old daughter with her father, convicted of threatening to kill her, generate stress and nightmares for the minor, that from this space "they are not acting appropriately" and that "it is not a place for a girl with these difficulties". After this interview, La Voz tried to obtain the version of those responsible for the space, not obtaining a response until days later, when a letter denying the accusations was sent to this newsroom.
From the direction of this space, a specialized resource that seeks to facilitate minors "in an individualized program" the relationship with their parents in conflict situations, deny that contact is allowed between a victim of gender violence and her aggressor. "It is absolutely false," they assert. They also add that "the victim has a professional reference person at the PEF, to whom she can freely express any fear, distrust or suggestion for improvement".
Thus, they assure that "they guarantee at all times the safety of the users, avoiding any type of visual contact or interaction between the parties" and that "different professionals are assigned to attend to each of the parties" with a protocol that "prevents any vulnerability for the victim or for the minor involved".
At this point, they assure that it is "totally false" that the victim of gender violence should see "her aggressor every Friday in this space", but that there is "a strict protocol that prevents it". From the meeting point, they defend that "at all times the safety and well-being of the minor has been guaranteed, strictly complying with the established protocols".
According to what the victim told La Voz, since June 2024, her abuser has a restraining order that prohibits him from approaching her within 300 meters and also from communicating, at least, until June 2026, two years after the court ruling. However, they must see each other every Friday in this space. While waiting for the custody of the minor to be resolved, the former couple has provisional measures to make visits at this meeting point. "We are considering whether he is psychologically prepared to have the girl, because I have suffered psychological violence for more than four years" and "constant threats towards the girl, telling me that the day she was due to see him she was going to disappear", said the mother in an interview published 15 days ago.
On the other hand, the meeting point adds that "in exceptional situations and always with the express consent of the mother, specific measures were adopted due to the difficulty of the minor remaining in the resource, considering her age and her condition of Autism Spectrum Disorder". In these circumstances, they defend that "it was the mother herself who expressed her desire not to be separated from the minor" and that "on rare occasions" the mother was allowed access to "a differentiated space" within the family meeting point, "where she could accompany her until she felt comfortable".
Finally, the management of this resource insists that, "at all times, the father remains in a closed room, under the supervision of the technical team, without any possibility of visual contact in those exceptional moments in which the mother has been able to be with the minor to calm her down". In addition, they emphasize that "there has never been visual contact or interaction between the parties, not even in those exceptional cases".
