The terror that the Uruguayan Eva experienced in Spain at the hands of her daughter’s father did not lessen with the protective orders she obtained through her lawyers. Living on benefits it was a legal expense Eva could not afford, and it only increased the suffering.
Although Eva could now count on police support, it made matters worse. The violence toward her and her daughter increased, as did the girl’s terror, since the judge obliged Eva to grant the father his right to unsupervised visitation.
“She always came back hurt, with cuts on her face and everywhere,” Eva told la diaria. “Depending on the wound, I couldn’t even take her to the hospital because they could accuse me of trying to fabricate evidence. The child was beside herself every time he came to pick her up.”
Eva is not her name, though her story is real and recurring. Aware of the “Maria case”, Eva exhausted all the legal pathways available to her without contravening the Hague Convention. She even gave up reporting on the father’s abuse to see if he would calm down. She then tried to obtain judicial authorization to return to Uruguay without the father’s approval to avoid charges of international abduction. She gathered all the documents, met all the requirements and even had a job offer. But it didn’t work. “They told me that the salary offer was too high for someone who was unemployed,” she recalled, indignant.
Eva was confronted with the reality of countless thousands of women raising children alone in another country because they were not aware of the Hague Convention before boarding a plane. Among the 2,000 mothers accused of abducting their children each year, there are those who had no knowledge of the Convention, many who were advised by lawyers who also had no knowledge, and those who did know but had no other choice. This is what happened to Eva the day the father–who had already lost parental custody–was sentenced without prison time.
Eva did not hesitate.
The next 50 hours–between the notification and landing at the Carrasco International Airport in Montevideo–Eva lived every minute in panic, thinking it would be her last, that even on the plane he might find her and kill her. She was not crazy.
It did not take long for her to receive confirmation that her ex-partner, also Uruguayan, had entered the country, the one he had not set foot in for more than ten years. But there he was, chasing her, in what turned into an endless panic. The difference for Eva: she was now in territory where she felt welcome, something far more useful to her than the official security measures. She had family ties and support, she knew where to go, who to call and what terminology to use, a detail not to be overlooked. Anxious but with a lawyer who understood her, she managed to obtain custody of her daughter and the father left. Eva was lucky.
But being better off does not mean being well. It took more than two traumatic years of Eva trying to protect her daughter from the father’s abuse and of trying to care for her while forced to stay in isolation in another country. She felt a different kind of terror brought on by the Convention, which could have separated her from her now three-year-old daughter who would have faced being alone without protection.
“If he hurts me, I can handle it,” the Uruguayan mother stated. “But not my daughter.”
*Originally published in Spanish by the Uruguayan newspaper la diaria, this piece has been written by journalist Patrícia Álvares and translated into English by Diana García.