—for 5,000 euros, five bottles of whiskey and some basic foodstuffs—he has returned to his family from Navarra.
The person investigating the matter took a statement last Friday from the young woman who had been living since October 3 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 was forced into marriage and that she was forced to beg. where a wedding was clearly seen following rites of the Romanian gypsy culture to which all the accused belong and the alleged victim was something other than a simple family celebration. Once the minor has been heard, as the newspaper has advanced secretthe court has suspended the protection measures for the minor and has closed the case.
. 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 a 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 supposedly trafficking family with the purpose of consummating the forced marriage with the buyers’ 21-year-old son. The teenager was not in school and begged to provide income for the purchasing family.
The sellers received aid from the Social Services of Navarra and it was the same technicians from these services who ended up reporting the disappearance of the teenager. The Civil Guard was the one who initiated the investigation and issued, on October 3, a notice to the Mossos d’Esquadra alerting that the girl could be in Catalonia.
That same October 3, a neighbor from Borges Blanques (Lleida) went into a supermarket to buy. At the door of the establishment he ran into a girl begging. He handed her several foods and stayed near the door waiting to see what her reaction was. The teenager entered the establishment again and tried to exchange the food for money. Borges Blanques’ neighbor felt deceived and called the Mossos d’Esquadra.
A patrol arrived at the scene and, upon verifying that the minor was undocumented and did not know how to speak Spanish or Catalan, they took her to the Mollerussa police station. The girl gave the officers a telephone number that did not need to be called because, two minutes after the minor entered the police station, a Romani couple who had lived in an apartment in Mollerussa for years showed up at the police station.
At the police station, the couple assured the agents that they were the minor’s uncles and they tried to quickly take the girl away. The Catalan police did not trust the couple’s version of events and required some type of documentation to validate their version. The couple provided a photocopy of the girl’s birth certificate. Once this documentation was entered into the database, the Civil Guard alert was soon opened, sent that same day, requesting the protection of the girl.
The Mossos arrested the couple and verified that the minor appeared on a Facebook profile along with one of the 21-year-old children of this couple of buyers. The photographs showed 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 accused of human trafficking, child begging and forced marriage. The minor was transferred to a Generalitat protection center in Almacelles (Lleida).
The victim’s parents were placed at the disposal of the Tudela Guard Court. While the other two men and the woman involved in the purchase and transfer of the minor were placed at the disposal of the Court of First Instance and Instruction of Lleida. All were released while the investigation of the case continued.
Last Friday, the minor testified in the Tudela court. The teenager assured that she did not consider herself a victim, she did not feel kidnapped nor had she been forced to beg. There is no document proving the marriage and she denies it. After the statement, the minor asked to return to her family in Navarra. The court has provisionally filed the case and the minor has since been with her parents.
