The parents of a 7-year-old girl have called on the authorities to either press charges or release their daughter, after she was placed into foster care when a school teacher flagged her suspicions of abuse due to the suggestive way the girl was playing with dolls.
A judicial protest was filed against the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police on behalf of the parents. In the protest, it was claimed that the parents were made aware of sexual abuse suspicions on 12 December 2016, when the girl was removed from school by the police.
The parents have repeatedly and categorically denied any form of abuse, nonetheless sexual abuse. They claim that the authorities placed their daughter into foster care, and therefore took away the parent's custody, based on the school teacher's assertion that the girl was playing with her dolls in a suggestive manner.
It was said that the parents had cooperated with the police in full, with the hope that it would speed up the inquiry process and have their daughter returned to them as quickly as possible. They claimed to have received a telephone call from a social worker, who informed them that she had been assigned by the courts to handle the case. This would cost the parents some €350, which was promptly paid.
The parents claimed to have been out of contact with their 7-year-old daughter since December, and that recently a member of their family had spotted her in Gozo. This is how they got to know that their daughter was placed in foster care there, the parents claimed.
They took umbrage with the fact that such decisions were taken without them being notified, and relayed their anger as to the lack of communication from the courts or Appogg.
Eventually, they were informed that their daughter would be kept under state custody until the official inquiry was concluded.
The fact that an inquiry surrounding a little girl and the way she played with a doll had not been concluded in about 80 was highlighted, with the protest accusing the state of failing to safeguard against the breakup of the family.
The protest goes on to say that regardless of the outcome, and regardless of the fact that the plaintiffs were to be viewed as innocent until proven guilty, their daughter has suffered trauma from being taken away from her parents and forced to live with strangers for such a long time.
Lawyers David Camilleri and Joseph Gatt signed the protest.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2lq44bs
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