He was only five years old when the institutions entered his life. They understood that there were serious reasons to remove custody from his parents. They "rescued" him from that environment and sent him to a juvenile center. ...
He was only five years old when the institutions entered his life. They understood that there were serious reasons to remove custody from his parents. They "rescued" him from that environment and sent him to a juvenile center. In theory, the administration had "fulfilled" its mission. Thirteen years later, after jumping from center to center, Iván has exposed the entire system.
He has a 40 percent disability, psychiatric problems, and epilepsy. However, on the same day he turned 18, where other young people would have had a big party and future plans, he found an open door to leave and very little hope. Since then, he has been sleeping on the street. First, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Then, in Arrecife. Finally, in La Graciosa, where at least he has found the charity of the residents of the eighth island.
He will no longer be a child for the administration, but the people of Graciosa say that he is still afraid of the dark, and that he spends a lot of time playing with the little ones. And above all, he still needs someone to take care of him. To make sure he takes his medication and give him a roof and, at least, something resembling a decent life.
However, Iván is alone, on the street, like a mirror showing us our worst side. The worst side of the system, unable to respond to vital issues. First, of the Social Services in Gran Canaria, who were in charge of a child since he was five years old and waited until the last moment to see what would become of him when he turned 18. Only a few days before his birthday, they went to the Courts to determine his incapacity, which would allow them to keep him admitted, although now in an "adapted center".
Second, of Justice. And the Courts of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where this process began, took months to issue a resolution. And the worst thing is that, in addition, that resolution was limited to saying that since Iván has moved to Lanzarote (something they claimed to know because they had seen him in the media), the issue was no longer their competence, and the Lanzarote courts should resolve it. That is, after half a year, they had resolved absolutely nothing.
Finally, with considerably greater speed, the Court of Arrecife has understood that there are no arguments to declare Iván incapable and force him to enter a center. But in any case, the slowness of Justice, so questioned also in many other issues, becomes intolerable in this case. Is there a boy who may not be able to live alone and, nevertheless, the Courts of Gran Canaria allowed him to live on the street for six months while they made a decision?
The issue, of course, is not easy, but bureaucracy, laws, and the inability or unwillingness to provide agile responses complicate it even more. And the worst thing is that Iván's is not an isolated case. Like him, there are other children who have gone through the same thing. And it is of little use for the administration to intervene by assuming the guardianship of a child, if it is not going to be able to give him a decent life afterwards.
In addition to highlighting the slowness of Justice and the actions of Social Services, Iván's drama also reflects the inability to respond to this type of situation. To what extent can an adult, even if they are only 18 years old, be forced to enter a center? And also, is that the only thing that can be offered to them? To lock them up?
Evidently, it is a dilemma. The same one that arises, for example, and saving the distances, with the drug addicts who inhabit the streets of Arrecife. In that case, the only thing that has been done "for them" is to "throw them from one place to another", as Sor Ana denounced in the report that La Voz de Lanzarote published last week. That, and the hypocrisy of maintaining the illegalization of drugs, but not preventing them from being sold. In fact, everyone knows where they are sold. And if they don't know, let them ask the neighbors who suffer it daily.
In recent years, many drug addicts have died on the island. The last victim, from overdose, this same year. The most heartbreaking, because she was also brutally murdered, without her crime having had answers until now, Expedita. Perhaps such a terrifying end was not foreseeable for her, but what was evident is that tragedy surrounded her every day. The same thing that is now happening to Iván, although for different reasons, and the same thing that is happening to many others, such as the people who occupy the terrible lot, located next to El Charco de San Ginés, which La Voz showed last week.
Some of those who live poorly there are drug addicts. Others, according to Sor Ana, have psychiatric problems. Can nothing really be done for them? Could nothing really be done for Expedita? That is the question that a society should ask itself that is capable of being moved when it knows a story, when it faces the face and eyes of a tragedy, but that as soon as it can looks the other way, or celebrates that they move the problem away from the door of their house.
