doing what the public prosecutor’s office and the CICIG say must be done. She said that as long as CICIG is in Guatemala, all judges must say yes to the public prosecutor’s office and yes to CICIG in order to avoid finding themselves in the same predicament she was currently in: in custody.
I do not know if her statement was true, but I witnessed firsthand what unfounded accusations on paper can do in this country. All I know is that this judge allowed me due process, but she must have doubted the intentions of Mayora & Mayora, the public prosecutor, and her cousin Frank Trujillo’s law firm, because even though they were requesting my imprisonment, she refused, and instead sent me home to my children without having to pay bail.
As this court drama unfolded before my eyes, I had yet another battle to fight back at home: my children’s custody. Some ten days after having been advised while in the carceleta to transfer my children’s guardianship to my mother, in order to protect them from being taken by the state, my mother, my brother, my children, and I were summoned to a children’s court to explain to a judge that I, the mother of the children in question, had been released and was in full capacity to regain custody of my children. Under the guidance of our family attorney, we planned to request that the judge remove my mother as guardian and legally return my children to me. However, the process was not as simple as logic may imply, and so began my new nightmare. After hearing our statement, the judge decided that, aside from the fact that her own people did not make the required visits nor present the required reports to her, my children were now in the system and there was nothing she could do but follow protocol.
To determine if I, the mother, was the ideal person to care for Nina and Fabián, my mother and I were ordered to attend a twelve-meeting course called “Parenting School.” In addition, my mother, my children, and I would have to undergo psychological evaluations (state, not private), and receive psychological therapy until the state doctor determined that we were fine. This was ludicrous! I had freely taken an attorney’s advice thinking that this was the best course of action to protect my children, and once again I was verifying that the government and its intensions were the last thing anyone should allow into their private matters. Even though my children would live with me, my mother would continue being their legal guardian until we sorted all of this out. I was devastated. My family attorney urged me to focus on the positive and insisted that at least my children had not been physically taken away from me.
We left the courthouse flabbergasted by what had just happened. Our next hearing was scheduled for November 17, 2015. In the meantime, my mother and I were ordered to find a government-approved center for our therapy and to attend parenting classes, go to INACIF (the National Institute of Forensic Sciences) with the children for our psychological evaluations, and to the PNG (Procuraduría General de la Nación) for another evaluation. As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate! How do people who work manage to navigate these processes?
I called several state-approved centers and finally found a place quite far away from my home called CAIFGUA (Centro de Atención Integral Para el Fortalecimiento de las Familias Guatemaltecas). It was located just one block away from a designated red zone, areas known for having especially high crime rates, but it was the only place where my mother and I could attend parenting classes on Saturdays, and all of us together to therapy during the week.
Our first parenting class took place on Saturday, October 31, 2015. The subject was domestic violence and child abuse, irrelevant in our home, but interesting nonetheless. We had no option but to go through the motions, follow the judge’s orders, and hope that the issue would be resolved at our next hearing.
The following Tuesday, my mother, my children, and I were scheduled for another court-ordered psychological evaluation at INACIF. This doctor was the first one to ask me who was the person claiming I was an unfit parent. He insisted that someone must have declared that I wasn’t taking proper care of my children. I clarified my circumstances and explained the predicament I was in. He insisted there was no reason for me to be there, and after interviewing my children, he promised that we would have no trouble from him or his report to the judge.
The following Thursday, my mother, children, and I returned to CAIFGUA to begin our individual therapy sessions—forty minutes each. After the therapist concluded the private sessions with my children, he asked me to join in. He wanted the three of us to play a board game so he could see how we interacted. My children and I are so used to playing games together that we had a blast, and the doctor had to stop us. He said to me, “I am delighted by your relationship with your children. You cannot imagine how many five-year-olds get frustrated because they can’t play well.”
Before we left, he asked me how many sessions the judge had ordered, to which I responded that I was under the impression that as the therapist, he should decide that. I told him my next hearing was on November 17, so he graciously set our next appointment for November 19, reasoning that if our case was resolved during the hearing, there would be no need for us to attend this next appointment.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, November 10, we drove to the Attorney General’s Office at 8 a.m. for the other psychological evaluations required by the judge. After more than an hour’s wait, the therapist came down to the waiting room to get us. I went up first. This was the second doctor to inform me that this entire situation with the custody of my children had been unnecessary from the start. The PGN does not remove children who have other family members willing and able to care for them, as in my case. However, since we had been ill-advised and my mother and brother had requested from the state that my children be protected legally, we were now in this insufferable system created to protect children from their parents . . . in this case, from me.
While my children had their sessions that day at the PGN, I decided to make an appointment with the social worker, as had been ordered by the court. This social worker, who was assigned by name, had failed to visit my home as the judge had ordered and I was not happy with her. As it turned out, she had tried to do her job, but had attempted to visit my brother’s home since that was the address originally entered in my case file. She showed me the paperwork and I realized that my address and my cell number were also incorrect.
“My hearing is scheduled for next week,” I said, “so I would appreciate it if you could visit us and report before then.”
“Let’s begin working on the socioeconomic study right now then,” she responded. “I will do my best to visit your home on Wednesday or Thursday, but please be patient with me because I do not have a car.”
Here was yet another good person filled with good intentions and ready to do her job, but drowning in a bureaucratic, inefficient, state system that lacks the resources and the tools to help people carry out their duties.
It was close to noon when my mother, my son, Fabián, and the therapist came down the stairs after their sessions had concluded. To my dismay, just as Fabián was placing his foot on the second-to-last step, he tripped on his rubber boots, hit his face against my mother’s knee, and fell to the floor. I ran to him, picked him up, made sure he was fine, and then immediately noticed his left eye was red. Our next hearing before the judge was in a week’s time, and by then it would surely be purple! Thank God it all happened in front of the therapist, the receptionist, and a waiting area full of patients. I told the receptionist I was worried about Fabian’s eye turning purple and the judge thinking it had been abuse. She suggested I take him next door to see the PGN doctor. He would give me a letter explaining what had happened. By now I knew that anything could and would be used against me. Before I left, I turned around and saw the people in the waiting area, all nodding their heads in unison. It was a comical reaction. We were all there because of a judge’s order; we understood one another.
That day, after dropping my mom off at her house, I kept going over what the therapist had told me, how I had been ill-advised and how this whole situation with my children was completely unnecessary and could’ve been avoided. I had tried my best to remain positive
