“Something bad is happening to my mom”: the terror of the children and the dramatic testimony of a victim of violence

“ I think something bad is happening to my mom, we should go back ”. E. She asked to go back to her house, from where she rushed out with her nanny and her little brother while her father hurt her mother. Again, run towards the square. Not to play, or to meet other girls with whom she can be a girl outdoors. Run towards the square to escape, to get away from the screams that are so frightening. Run towards the square to be safe . But knowing that mom stayed at home, she was in danger. Again.

Can you think that two children of five and three years old who see how her father crashes her mother against the furniture and drags her by the hair to the storage room are only witnesses of ill-treatment? Can we even imagine how those little heads process to grow in such a climate of terror? Haven't we already learned that violence doesn't always take the form of a fist?

E. and F. await the authorization of Family Court number 1 of Tigre, in charge of Sandra Fabiana Veloso, to be able to travel to Chile to start a new life. Her mother, Sade Hugo, is Chilean and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins, a huge network of support and tenderness ready to mend the wounds are waiting for them there . Those that although they were not printed on their little bodies, they mark the same. They hurt a lot.

In Argentina, her father is imprisoned for threats, with his release revoked and a sentence of one year and eight months . They also do not receive a meal fee and were left without enrollment in the kindergarten at St. Andrew's Scots School, after the last virulent turn of their father at the door of the institution.

How much more are they going to force them? When does it bottom out?

wolf on the loose

Sade met the father of her children at the age of 21. She was traveling for work in Buenos Aires on her way to New York, taking a taste of a career as a model that projected internationally.

“We ran into each other at a restaurant. We saw each other, like we fell for each other. Then he found me on Facebook. She came to my name because she saw me in an advertisement and suggested meeting us, but I had traveled to the United States. She kept writing to me for months. She told me that she was the woman of her dreams, that she wanted to cross the Siberian train with me. He was super romantic and dreamy. Until one day she showed up in the DF, Mexico City, where I was working. when i met him i loved him . He seemed to me a super traveled, intelligent, passionate guy. Totally sure of himself. He 'beat' me for 12 years. There our love story was born. A story that painted magic”.

Sade looks with deep eyes. Very celestial. But as attending to something that happens in another universe. Lost in the memories of the first tickles, the daze for that enchanted male who quickly turned into a pumpkin.

“We decided to go back to Argentina and I got pregnant. I was young. He was 22 years old and very scared. That stage was difficult because I was in the best moment of my professional career. I had a contract to go to Milan, which was a dream for me, and it was broken. But I had always wanted to start a family and I dared to start it with him ”.

The baby was born in Argentina and after six months they decided to settle in Chile .

“In Chile he began with a problematic consumption of alcohol and becoming violent. Jealousy, comments, control, a lot of control . Perhaps at that time he was not alarming to me. Now I realize that there were signs of things that did not give. The thing is, I was… I don't know how to explain it. I feel like one of the deepest things he did to me in this relationship was destroy my self-esteem. He used so much manipulation on me. He said that my job was shit, my family was shit, my friends. my self esteem is broken . Little by little I was losing the authority of my life.

A year and eight months apart, the couple's second child was born. It sounded nice, then, to move to a mansion, with a garden, a lot of space and far from Sade's support network.

“We went to a big house because he said that the children deserved a 'more family' house. It was like a closed neighborhood and I stayed there. at the time I learned to drive and he immediately installed a GPS in the car, and every time he went somewhere or did something he didn't like he would cut the power to the car . At the same time, he began to destroy ties with my friends and to harass the model campaigns I was doing with violent messages. I work with my image, with what I project and communicate, it's easy to hurt myself that way. I was left more and more alone in the house.

One night of liters and liters of alcohol, Sade had to ask for shelter from a neighbor with the smallest child on her back and the other barely on her feet. Her husband had kicked her out after a beating that included lockdowns and kicks on the floor. The next day she was encouraged to file a complaint . In response, she was allowed to return home.

“After that episode the relationship broke down and he decided to travel to Buenos Aires. Finished. I stayed with my children in Chile. He felt that he had taken several firm steps. I went to work and was about to rent an apartment when he came back for me. She said it was going to be different. The truth is that physically he gave the sensation that he had changed, that he had sought some kind of help. I believed. She told me 'we have such small children'... and I always wanted a family. For the love of my family I thought 'I'll try a thousand times if I have to' ”.

The reformist stage would take place in Argentina, which is why they all settled back in Buenos Aires shortly before the Covid outbreak. But at this point we know that Prince Charming fades and the honeymoon is cloying when it simulates false calm. So after two months the violence restarted the cycle .

On the advice of a friend, Sade contacted the lawyer Verónica Carotta and they started a series of complaints that expelled the violent man from the home. Given the insistence of the aggression, he ended up in prison .

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— Razor Karu Sun May 02 20:07:40 +0000 2021

However, nothing is linear or automatic or obvious or easy when violence is endured. Like a labyrinth in Crete, it takes much more than Ariadne's thread to find the exit that leads away from the beast. And because empowerment also implies managing to appropriate vulnerabilities. Put together the little pieces that we became after the fine work that convinced us that we can't do it alone, that we are useless, that we don't matter, that we don't even think about it.

“The boys went back to school, we were rebuilding our lives when he called from prison. He asked me to go see him where he was being held. I went and he made me very sad. I felt guilty. I felt that maybe he could have done things differently… I don't know. I blamed myself and withdrew the complaints so he could get out . I felt that I had to be the savior of the father of my children and I believed that he was going to be different. Because of what he had lived through, he thought with all his heart and with all faith that it was really going to be different”.

Sade's swerve granted a lightening of the sentence and enabled house arrest in October 2021 . Far from decompressing, the scene recalls the minutes before a tsunami. When the sea pretends to gently withdraw from the coast, slide back and discover kilometers of beach, to reappear with the ferocity of a train of giant waves that destroys everything that crosses its path.

On December 4, E. and F. had to "escape" to the square with the nanny before a new beating of their mother, and on December 10 the kindergarten act ended with the father arrested again after knocking over the mother with his 4x4 Jeep. barrier to entry to school .

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Can a man who beats his wife be a good father? That the blows and humiliations happen in front of the children in common does not undermine the image of the exemplary father one bit? If the boys are free of bumps, is it enough to unleash the show of loving fatherhood?

In dialogue with Infobae , the psychiatrist Enrique Stola positions himself: “When the boys and girls listen and observe that her father is aggressively directed – with gestures, insults or blows – against the mother, they experience terrible suffering. In the first place because they see that the being they love, their mother, is being attacked. The second thing is that they are afraid that this violence will be fired at them at any moment. In other words, it is not true that violence does not have consequences for children even when the boys do not directly receive physical aggression. In fact, different studies show high percentages of post-traumatic stress, depression, mood disorders and behavioral problems among those who are in homes where sexist violence is exercised . There is also an over-adaptation to paternal wishes because fear of the father figure prevails”.

The report “Sexual and gender-based violence: roadmap for prevention and care in Latin America and the Caribbean” recently published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) confirms that there is a high intergenerational transmission of violence. Girls who witnessed violence against their mothers are twice as likely to be victims of violence in their homes and boys are six times more likely to abuse their partner as adults . On the other hand, and in line with Stola, the IDB details that the risk factors for children who have experienced violence include tolerance to it and not seeking help when suffering it, depression, low self-esteem and anxiety, and multiple forms of perpetuation of violence. violence or victimization in adulthood.

After years at the helm of the NGO Red por la Infancia, Paula Wachter proposes to change the way of conceptualizing in order to demolish myths rooted in the social imaginary: “We must modify the paradigm that children are witnesses of conjugal violence. That does not exist. The boys aren't watching a movie, they're watching dad do violence to mom. They are not impartial witnesses. suffer. At a minimum they install unhealthy ways of relating to them and at a maximum they witness the femicide of their mother. They are victims of the same violence that they feel, that they perceive and that runs through them. Especially, it crosses his way of seeing the world . The stereotype of the violent man with the woman but a good father, what he does is trap women and children in the framework of violence, and allows it to be perpetuated. If we add the judicial response times, which are never consistent with people's response times, greater vulnerability and institutional violence are generated. With delaying maneuvers it takes years and the violence becomes chronic”.

Paternity in default

Hiding behind a supposed endearing concern for their sons and daughters is déjà vu among violent people. At the same time, they tend to avoid any type of economic responsibility. Specifically, the father of E. and F. carries a sentence for not paying food for almost two years .

“We started an execution of a sentence for overdue provisional food that a year ago awaits a resolution in the Court of Appeals. In all family processes, the only thing that Sade's ex-partner did through the attorney in charge of her was delay, hinder, request annulments . The objective is to wear down Sade and her children with a long, cumbersome judicial process, which specifically affects the economic situation of the boys because from March 2020 to date they have not received a penny from their father, ”explains the lawyer Verónica. carotta.

Failure to comply with the food quota has been a criminal offense since 1950, typified in Law 13,944 . Provides a prison sentence of one month to two years or a fine of seven hundred and fifty pesos to twenty-five thousand pesos. The new Civil and Commercial Code also established the obligation to financially assist sons and daughters up to 21 years of age.

“The non-payment of alimony for non-cohabiting children is a very widespread gender phenomenon. The majority of the obligors are men, the majority of the creditors are the mothers who live with their children and who sue on their behalf. . It is important to note that not complying with food duties constitutes violence against children and an intolerable ethical issue, as well as a violation of human rights as stated in our legal corpus. It is also about patrimonial economic gender violence, established by the game of Law 26,485 and regulatory decree 1011/2010″. Who puts white on black is the lawyer and doctor in social policies Claudia Hasanbegovic.

And he continues: “When the State does not guarantee the payment of alimony, nor does it do what is in its power to remove legislative, social, administrative or judicial practice obstacles that prevent access to rights, it is not only an accomplice of male patrimonial violence against women but violates the human rights of these single mother families. Their actions constitute institutional violence and make the State incur in State International Responsibility ”.

Sade, her daughter and her son are waiting for permission from an Argentine judge to be able to settle in Chile . They do not try to lose themselves in the world, they want to start telling new stories. Start the school year, dust off professional dreams, replace screaming with soft melodies, firm threats with fluffy hugs. Away from the fear that commands, from the fear that lurks and forces us to live at risk. Sade, her daughter and her son deserve this opportunity. One more. The ones that are needed.

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