A daughter of divorced parents, forced to choose between her parents due to restrictions in Madrid

The parents of 12-year-old Carmen L. divorced 10. After a while, her father moved to Valdemarín, a neighborhood in the north of the city, without imagining that one day there would be an invisible border that would divide Madrid in two.

"I told Carmen to go live with her father while this was happening, so she could go out and enjoy the fall, but she said she wanted to stay in the neighborhood, even if she had to be confined," says her mother, Vanessa L. .

Madrid has restricted the entry and exit of 45 health areas, which has meant limiting the movements of approximately 1,000,000 people.

One of them is the Orcasur neighborhood, which has one of the highest percentages of infections in the region, with more than 1,000 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days.

More information

• Shared custody: the key to caring for children after the breakup

• Joint custody: the best option when parents separate

Carmen's family feels in the middle of

.

In March, when the state of alarm was declared, mobility restrictions already forced them to change the shared custody system they had agreed to.

Under this regime, Carmen usually spent the entire week with her mother, Vanessa L, and on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays with her father.

"With the fear of contagion, we decided that it was best to spend 15 days in each house," says Vanessa L, 41 years old.

Now they do not know how they are going to organize themselves because no one can tell them how long these new confinement measures can last, with which they have put on the table an emergency solution: that their daughter stops seeing either of them for some time.

Between Valdemarín and Orcasur there are 16 kilometers, about 20 minutes by car.

“With the police checkpoints, it took us up to an hour to get from one place to another,” says Vanessa.

To this is added that Carmen has just entered a school in the center of Madrid to study, so she has to travel by public transport every day to the institute: even more risk of contagion.

"I'm afraid that she will go alone, and with the new restrictions someone will stop her on the street," she says.

Carmen does not understand this concern of her mother, who, just entering adolescence, already feels old enough to go to school alone.

Carmen's parents, on the other hand, also take other factors into account.

For example, they worry that someone will reject or try to stigmatize their daughter for saying that she lives in one of the southern neighborhoods that are confined.

"A very racist message is getting through because of the sectarian speeches of the president of the Community of Madrid," says Vanesa.

This weekend, she and her family joined the concentration in Usera regarding the new measures.

"I felt a lot of concern because people do not understand why they have put these borders on us," says Vanesa, who explains that her pharmacy, her hairdresser and even her greengrocer are in a basic health area different from where she lives, which is why they do not it can go.

"The people of the neighborhood are very afraid and are very outraged because the contagion figures are the same or worse in other places where there is no confinement, such as Lavapiés," he denounces.

“The situation we are experiencing right now falls within the legal framework, because there is no state of alarm.

In March, which was a very critical situation, a series of exceptions were allowed for mobility, for example parents could move to care for minors.

In this case, the same thing happens, even if someone lives in a neighborhood with restrictions ”, affirms the family lawyer, Delia Rodríguez.

"Families must adapt as best they can to this difficult situation, but it is not the best option, since it involves a change of house for the child that not only endangers the minor, but also the grandmother or the relative that corresponds" advises Rodríguez.

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