The young 14-year-old teenager, sold by her parents to a 21-year-old from Mollerussa (Lleida) for 5,000 euros, five bottles of whiskey and some basic foodstuffs, has returned to her family in Navarra.
The court of Tudela (Navarre) which was investigating the case received last Friday the declaration of the young woman who had been living since 3 October in a center of the General Directorate of Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents of the Generalitat located in Almacelles (Lleida).
In court the girl denied both that she had been forced to marry and that she had been forced to beg. He also denied that the images that the police found on Facebook in which they could clearly see a wedding following rites of the Romanian gypsy culture to which all the accused and the alleged victim belong, were not a simple family celebration. Once the minor has been heard, as the newspaper anticipated Secretsthe court suspended the child’s protection measures and closed the case.
The events date back to last January in the town of Corella in Navarra. The minor’s parents, a 35-year-old man and woman, met with another family residing in Mollerussa (Lleida) and closed the illicit deal for which they received the payment of 5,000 euros, five bottles of whiskey and some basic foodstuffs. After the agreement, the minor was transferred to Catalonia. There she remained under the control of the family of the alleged traffickers with the aim of consummating the forced marriage with the buyers’ 21-year-old son. The teenager was not in school and begged to provide an income for the purchasing family.
The sellers received help from the Social Services of Navarra and it was the technicians of these services themselves who reported the disappearance of the teenager. It was the Guardia Civil who started the investigation and, on October 3, issued a notice to the Mossos d’Esquadra warning that the girl could be in Catalonia.
That same October 3, a neighbor of Borges Blanques (Lleida) entered a supermarket to make purchases. At the door of the establishment he met a girl who was begging. He handed her several foods and stood by the door waiting to see what her reaction was. The teenager entered the club again and tried to exchange the food for money. Borges Blanques’ neighbor felt deceived and called the Mossos d’Esquadra.
A patrol arrived on site and, having ascertained that the minor was without documents and could not speak either Spanish or Catalan, took her to the Mollerussa police station. The girl provided the officers with a telephone number which it was not necessary to call because, two minutes after the minor entered the police station, a Roma couple who had lived for years in an apartment in Mollerussa showed up at the police station.
Once at the police station, the couple assured the officers that they were the minor’s uncles and attempted to quickly take the girl away. The Catalan police did not trust the couple’s version of events and needed some kind of documentation to validate their version. The couple provided a photocopy of the girl’s birth certificate. Once this documentation was inserted into the database, the Guardia Civil alert was immediately opened, sent on the same day, asking for the girl’s protection.
The Mossos arrested the couple and verified that the minor appeared on a Facebook profile together with one of the 21-year-old sons of this buying couple. From the photographs it appeared that they were celebrating the wedding of the 21-year-old young man with the 14-year-old girl. Both the young man and the purchasing couple were arrested and charged with human trafficking, child begging and forced marriage. The minor was transferred to a protection center of the Generalitat in Almacelles (Lleida).
The victim’s parents were made available to the Tudela Guard Court. While the other two men and the woman involved in the purchase and transfer of the minor were made available to the Court of First Instance and Education of Lleida. All were released while investigations into the case continued.
Last Friday the minor testified before the Tudela court. The teenager assured that she did not consider herself a victim, that she did not feel kidnapped or that she had been forced to beg. There is no document certifying the marriage and she denies it. After the declaration, the minor asked to return to her family in Navarra. The court provisionally closed the case and the minor has since remained with her parents.
