Helping orphans of femicide, changing the adoption law can protect them

In many cases of feminicide, orphaned minors have to overcome not only one trauma but many: alongside the deep wound of the loss of one parent at the hands of the other and the end of family life, minors often suffer estrangement from other family members as well. In fact, it happens that for orphans of femicide the procedure for the declaration of classic adoption, legitimizing, the one that provides for the termination of all ties with the families of origin, as if they no longer existed. Now the Cassation with an interlocutory order has opened the way to another possible solution.

The Cassation turned to the Constitutional Court asking it to evaluate the constitutionality of the prohibition of contact with family members, within an adoption, “in a profoundly changed social context, where the severing of ties with the original family units is not always adequate criterion to provide effective substitute protection for situations generated by forms of family violence”.

The case discussed is that of two children, the youngest a few months old, who remained mother orphans, whose maternal grandmother did not feel she had the strength to raise them, but had great affection for them and had maintained an ongoing relationship. It is then difficult to help the children by placing them in the paternal family of origin, which lives abroad, despite having shown availability, openness and affection for the children from the outset.

But why cut off all relationships? Young people need to have parents capable of raising them, but this should not automatically exclude the presence of their families of origin. The solution? «The legitimizing adoption with opening of relationships. In fact, it is not always possible to proceed with special adoption. This form of adoption is typical, i.e. it can be declared in cases expressly provided for by law. Recently the Cassation in United Sections has indicated it as the most protective tool in cases of surrogacy. In this way, in fact, the relationship that the intentional parent has with the biological child of the partner is protected. But in cases of orphans of femicide or in those cases in which the minors have been declared in a state of abandonment but have had relatives alongside them, albeit not adequate, the most protective form is the legitimizing adoption with the possibility of foreseeing maintaining these relationships. Severing ties with the original families, in fact, is not always the right solution to provide effective substitute protection for situations generated by forms of family violence» explains the lawyer specializing in family law Maria Grazia Di Nella.

«The Cassation has raised the issue: why should we automatically provide for the termination of ties with the families of origin? Instead, we should leave it up to the judge to establish each time which is the best solution. These kids, especially when they reach a certain age, begin to need to know about themselves: origins, roots. With the internet and social networks, they immediately find the history of their family, especially with cases that end up on the news pages. Especially at the beginning of adolescence we try to heal the wound of abandonment. They need to understand to go beyond the story that the adoptive parents have told in agreement with social servicesneed to justify those who have not been able to raise them.

Let us not forget that there are not only cases of femicide, there are children in an objective state of moral and material abandonment: children left to grow up alone, undernourished, not cared for, abused or mistreated by drug addicted or alcoholic parents, children with strong economic and social hardship. If the family situation cannot be resolved in a timely manner for the needs of these children, removal from their families of origin and the declaration of adoptability is the only solution that guarantees them a future. Even in these cases, why exclude this form of adoption a priori, the lawyer asks. «The openness to this possibility could be important in all those cases in which, to avoid the minor losing their families of origin forever, the Services have indicated the solution of alternative foster care sine die as preferable. The assignmentin fact, by law it should have a maximum duration of two years, renewable only once. But to date there are countless minors who have been in foster care for years, they have established a deep relationship with these families but they are not their children .. with all the consequences in terms of successors as well. So why not have the possibility of adoption with a stable family and maintaining the relationship with the one of origin?».

– Special orphans, Valentina and the others: «Listen to us»

– Without Escape