Judge removes custody of 4-yr-old from mother for having brought her to Catalonia

A Tenerife judge took custody of a 4-year-old girl away from her mother because of the supposed linguistic barriers that moving her to Catalonia, Ripollet near Barcelona in this case, imply. According to a report in the newspaper El Punt Avui, the ruling of the District Judge in Güímar, Tenerife, says that because the parents do not agree, what is important is to protect the interests of the minor.

"She is in an autonomous community defined by special characteristics of integration, because in addition to the normal adaptation to a change in territory or customs, one must add the difficulty of learning a language that is co-official with Spanish, that is Catalan, that, as everyone knows, is the language used by a large part of Catalan society, as well as in schools. [...] Neither has it been proven that the minor has adapted to the language nor that this circumstance is not acting as a barrier to her development.

The judge's ruling is even more surprising given the fact that, in addition to the language, the judge penalizes the mother because she has a job. "The flexibility of her schedule makes the judge doubt the mother ..." On the other hand, "the father is unemployed, and therefore has more flexibility in his schedule," said the judge.

This is not the first time that Spanish judges rule against tha Catalan language. The Catalan case has been reported as linguistic discrimination in Europe, the Catalan language has often been scorned, some people kicked off trains or fined for speaking Catalan, as Help Catalonia has reported before.

Source in Catalan

Source in English