CHILDREN RIGHTS
All children have the same rights no matter sex, origins, language, religion, economic or familiar status.
All children have the right of a name and a nationality from its birth, that's to be identified from other people and be part of a country where they can integrate.
All children must live healthy and have acces to sanitary services that could need. The same with food and accomodation.
Have a family on which feel comfortable and supported. If it's not possible, the autorities should care about them.
Children must have acces to education.
Children have the right to play and enjoy art and culture.
In case of any dishability, children must receive spceial cares.
All children must be specially protected to develop physically, mentally and socially in a proper way.
All children have the right to be attended in first place when needed protection.
Children must be protected from any kind of explotation, cruelty or abandon.
They have to be educated in solidarity, friendship and justice.
Children can dennounce, alone or with other people help, of anything they are done to them or to any other children.
MINOR LAW
Since 1987, after the Civil Code Reform, the role of the Administration concerning children has increase. From this moment on, the figure of the child is contended in law.
In 1995, the importance of children need of protection is reassessed with the Granted Rights for Childhood and Adolescence law. And a year later, it was supported with judicial resolutions in Madrid area with the Law of Child Defense.
LAW OF CHILD DEFENSE
It is divided in six parts:
The first title in which the law is divided focuses in the judicial aspects of the law, especially to bring the Child Defender Office, an organization for child protection, enough versatility to prevent and act whenever the children rights aren't respected.
The second and third titles focus on procedures and resolutions, which are basically technical contents.
The fourth point establishes prevention and orientation. These should be the most important issues of the Child Defender Office, otherwise the law could be mistaken with just another complaining office.
In the fifth place it is said that each year a report must be made with all the cases the Child Defendant Office has attended and also the way the report has been done.
Finally the sixth title organizes the staff and material resources to do a good job. In addition it states the need of a Technical Council to consult with qualified personal to provide an objective point of view in all the cases the office attends.
As an ending, the law ends with several predictions about the consequences of the law development and a deadline for all administration on which it has to be fully operative.
FRAMEWORK
The System of Protection to Underaged in Spain covers all people below 18 years old, Spanish or foreigner, who are staying in a social situation of risk whether if they live permanently in Spain or not.
According to the Organic Law of 1996, underaged from abroad can be attended by Public Administration which is in charge of taking care of them and formalize their situation which as a result has had a lot of minor from north of Africa coming to Spain.
RISKY SITUATIONS
Risk is characterized for being a situation on which damage exist for the minor. A damage which is not severe enough to separate the children from its family so the administration tries to erase those risky factors by taking prevention or rehabilitation measures on the family context. The duty of acting whenever a minor is in dangers falls into the local authorities which have special teams called Social Services. Social Services care, among others, about children issues, elderly people, women problems and people with disabilities.
Social Services actions are bound to solve or improve the family environment of the children. These actions can be technical or economical. In addition, actions can be followed with advices or social programmes to asses both the family and the child. In any case, those actions will be decided without considering the children family condition, no child will be excluded from its family unless it is the only solution. In most of the cases, the problems that the children face are caused by the family.
Despite all the efforts from the administration to care about children by teaching and instructing the families, it may happen that the problem remains and the family keep acting improperly. In these cases local authorities will proceed to extract the children from its family through legal actions. First, the tutelage is assumed by the administration without any need of waiting for a resolution from the court. Then, parent's patria potestas is cancelled so they won't have any privilege in court because of being the child's parents. And finall, custody assumption, which means that the Fiscal Ministry changes the data from the child to update it with them taking care of the child instead of its parents.
CHILD DEFENDER OFFICE
It is an independent organization which watches for children rights.
There are similar organizations all over Europe such as: Ombudsman of children in Sweden, Infance Mediator in Norwey, Minos Lawyer in Denmark…etc.
The Child Defender Office was created was created as part of the Granted Rights for Childhood and Adolescence law the 28th March of 1995. And it is also judicially supported since the 8th July of 1996 with the Law of Child Defense.
The Child Defender Office has five main aims:
To supervise not only Public Administration but also private companies that serves underaged and watch that the children rights are respected.
To deal with reports and complains from citizens about threatened children.
To improve children protection suggesting new procedures.
To spread the rights of children and adolescents.
To do researchs to find out how children rights are applied, if adults respect those rights and the community knows them.
Among other issues, it attends people questions related to children, it rates TV programmes according to the contents and the hours on which they will be aired to avoid children watching them in case they are considered dangerous, it also deal and agrees with computer developers to disable children to access to web pages which contents aren't appropriate for them, it also pays attention to the role of children in advertisements no matter the product or the target audience.