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The leftwing groups in the European Parliament wish to increase public funds in favour of the so-called “Child Guarantee”, a social EU programme supposedly created to aid minors in need.
However, two scandals in Spain are putting this model in question. The ECR Party Vice-President Jorge Buxade Villalba hosted an event on 8 March bringing to the light what local socialist politicians have been pursuing to hide from their fellow citizens.
On Christmas’ Eve 2019, a 13-year old girl participating in one of those aid programmes was raped in Mallorca by a group of eight youngsters. TV news shocked their audience when it was known that the girl was working as a prostitute in the streets of Palma.
In January 2020, VOX members requested an immediate political investigation of the matter. The regional government unwillingly recognised at first that no less than 16 cases of sexual exploitation had been perpetrated with minors under child protection programmes between 2017 and 2019.
The count of covered cases has by now reached 40. Girls included in the aid programmes were drugged and abused before being subject to prostitution through an organised network. VOX formally requested a committee to be created in the regional Parliament, but this was opposed by the socialist, communist and independentist coalition ruling in Madrid. Not even the Popular Party seconded the motion to look into the matter.
When Mr. Buxade’s colleagues actually visited the centres for the protection of minors, social workers stated that they knew about the problems and that they had explicitly informed the political authorities, who decided to cover up the illegal networks.
The regional government finally decided to create their own committee, formed with close political allies and, as such, heavily biased. Its conclusion was that the problem was not due to anybody’s individual responsibility, but rather to the deep conflicts of our whole society, a typical Marxist subterfuge which runs contrary both to reason as well as to ECR principles.
In the meantime, no feminist association has raised their voice against these crimes. On the contrary, they still support that childcare facilities should be further funded as a substitute for families, and for what they call “informal care” unduly performed by mothers in the household.
This obsession to increase the externalisation of childcare outside of the home is mixed with another modern dogma, that of fostering illegal migration. Indeed, a prostitution of minors case in Palma de Mallorca, nicknamed “House of Horrors”, has been launched by a group of squatters from Algeria. Feminist in the Balearic government never complained about this blatant breach of the law. At a later stage, the regional government’s Commissioner of Social Affairs had to recognise that she even knew about the flat where the minors were obliged to work as prostitutes.
In 2022, another minor girl was declared missing in Santa Maria del Camino, Mallorca. The law enforcement agency “Guardia Civil” discovered that she was still fostered under the aid programme run by the Mallorca Institute of Social Affairs. After becoming pregnant, said Institute had obliged her to have an abortion, by telling her that if she ever gave birth to the child, “we would have to take it away from you”.
VOX filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor. However, to this date nothing has been done from the national public office. The Spanish ECR Party members went on to the judiciary, accusing the leftwing coalition of political and legal responsibility. A guarantee of €20,000 has been requested by the criminal judge to pursue the matter. Mr. Buxade’s colleagues confirmed that this would be collected and paid, so that the case can be brought to the scrutiny of competent authorities.
Such extraordinary mismanagement of public funds reveals a deeper concern for the whole model. This is based on a generous social budget that pays NGOs €150 per hour and child taken out of its family. More than 1,000 children are included in aid programmes in Mallorca, so that the network is costing taxpayers a total of €50 million per year.
Similar problems have been raised in Valencia, another region in Spain. As early as February 2017, a minor claimed that a social worker was molesting her. The centre administration decided not to run an investigation. When the public opinion came to know that the social worker was Mr. Ramirez, at the time husband of Valencia’s Commissioner for Social Affairs Mrs. Monica Oltra, a new child guarantee scandal shook many Spaniards.
Mr. Ramirez was indeed condemned to 5 years inprisonment, but he appealed the judgment. His writ mentioned two former reports implemented by the Commissioner’s Office, where the regional administration was trying to cover up the affair.
In September 2021, the magistrates confirmed an aggravation of sanction on the “Oltra Case”, based on a proven obstruction of the course of justice on behalf of the Valencia regional government. As on the Balearic Islands, this case seems to be the point of the iceberg. Today, there are already 15 adults under survey in the dossier.
Furthermore, a new case in Valencia has arisen, the “Alike Case”, where the mother of one of two minors discovered that the girls under the childcare programme were used as prostitutes in Gandia, Valencia. VOX local members estimate that 4% of children under the regional aid programme are being abused.
As a consequence, Mr. Buxade has successfully filed a request with the European Parliament PETI committee to investigate what the consequences of these “child guarantee” programmes amount to, something rather sinister.
At the root of the problem lies the intended dissolution of family in favour of the state and its funded NGOs, plus a clear breach of the principle of subsidiarity that should limit public action. State tentacles are called to exert a supposed protection over minors, as if the natural place of children were not their own household. The ECR politician complained that he knows about cases where even calling a son or daughter on the phone is being blocked within the European Union.
In conclusion, he did not advise for an increase of public funds in favour of these so-called child guarantee organisations; this would only amount to further considering children’s parents as suspicious individuals who should not be in charge of their own descendants’ upbringing and education, even at early stages in their lifetime.