Orphans of femicides in the Dominican Republic have no one to care for them

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A little more than ten years ago, Ezequiel Gómez decided to take a loaded gun to the home of his wife, Milquella Figuereo, then 36 years old, and brutally murder her a few blocks from her home, west of Santo Domingo.

He didn't care that she begged her not to do it, much less shoot him in front of the two children they had together.

They were only 6 and 4 years old and they saw it all.

While Figuereo was being treated unsuccessfully at the hospital, Gómez fled and, to this day, he has not been arrested.

Thus, overnight, Kelvin Manuel and Júnior Alberto became orphans.

The dates, weapons and names of the perpetrators and victims change, but the orphans due to femicides are many.

Too many.

Last year alone in the Dominican Republic, these sexist murders left at least 64 boys and girls motherless.

There were 70 in 2022. And 358 in the last five years.

“Violence against women is not only suffered by them, but also by their children,” laments Yanira Fondeur, president of the Life Without Violence Foundation, the organization that collects this data from the press.

On the official website of the Attorney General's Office, the most recent figures are for 2022.

What did make Kelvin and Júnior's story completely different from that of the other orphans was the presence of Altagracia Valdez Cordero, Figuereo's cousin and, today, the adoptive mother of the 14 and 16 year old teenagers.

Valdez began paying a monthly payment to the children's maternal grandparents, who took charge.

She never thought about living with them, but the conversation about the murder of her mother became a recurring topic in the new house and was too painful for the children to grieve.

“There was a day when I went to visit them and the youngest clung to my legs and shouted at me with his eyes: please, don't go,” says this woman who also lost her mother suddenly at the age of seven by phone. , due to a heart attack.

That same night, Júnior moved into his house.

Months later Kelvin arrived, and shortly after they began to process, first the guardianship and then the final adoption.

“Today they are teenagers like any other, who want to be on the networks all day, and you have to tell them to study… but they are my cute little boys.

And it hasn't been easy at all,” he says.

It has been an uphill climb for both parties.

For them, life took a 180 degree turn.

The nightmares in which the crime scene returned again and again, the looks at school, the house and the new rules... And for Valdez, the same.

“I have dedicated myself for years to being a therapist specializing in child abuse and orphans due to feminicide, but I never had to raise them.

When I see mothers on the streets with their children, I feel like kneeling in front of them.

What a difficult task it is to be a mother! ”She says laughing.

It is incredible that the laughter has not been erased from a woman who has seen so much, who has consoled so much pain.

“For me it was a very difficult job.

My whole life changed,” she admits.

But they, he says, were lucky.

Lucky that she herself was able to take on the adoption of both brothers and also the psychological support.

They are clearly the exception to the Dominican norm.

According to a qualitative study requested by the NGO Life without Violence, the common thing is that the return to “normality” for the little ones is a real

Way of the Cross.

Tahira Vargas García analyzed 17 cases of feminicide that occurred in 2022, which left 45 children motherless.

Although the researcher says that each case “is a world,” there are common factors.

The first, the vacuum of the State.

Although there is a state plan for psychological support and support for each child orphaned by feminicide, reality usually bears very little resemblance to that on paper.

“The majority of cases that I know through my work have been very bureaucratic,” laments Valdez.

“Everyone ends up stumbling from one house to another and in more precarious situations.”

During the presentation of the report, Nilda Silverio, social worker of the Supérate program, which ensures the rights of minors in this situation, assured that in the first 24 days of January, they had made 15 home visits.

“The difficult thing is the lack of economic resources that exist.

Many times, we have to take out of our pockets what we have in our wallets to leave it to those families who don't have anything to eat.

There are resources but perhaps they reach other hands,” she assured.

Another result that draws Vargas' attention is that, in cases of large families, foster families usually separate the minors into different houses.

“The trauma of the children is enough that they have to live it separately,” she says.

“It also happens that many times the victims sensed that they were going to be killed and spoke to their children beforehand to ask them to take care of their siblings if they were murdered.

The pressure they have on them is impressive.”

Valdez tried to get Kelvin and Júnior to continue socializing with their other three brothers (children of another father), but it was impossible.

“For them, my children are the result of their mother and the murderer.

“They judged them a lot without having any fault.”

This statement is also very common, according to Vargas' research, which indicates that school is far from being a safe space for these children and adolescents.

“It is very difficult to realize that they become places of revictimization in which they are pointed out as the children of the murderers or that their friends' parents prohibit them from playing with them,” says Vargas.

Although there are no studies that show the correlation between school dropouts and orphanhood due to femicides in the Dominican Republic, Vargas regrets that it is a common result.

“Sometimes they are punished for bad behavior and expelled, but all these children need is psychological attention.”

And Fondeur adds: “Not one or two days.

They need constant support that covers these little ones and accompanies them with anger, frustration or strong sadness.

They are experiencing very strong processes and although the Ministry of Women is making great efforts, they are insufficient.”

Parental authority, another pending issue

In the Dominican Republic, when a feminicide is committed [which is not classified in the Penal Code, nor in the new renewal project], the parental authority or parental authority of the murderer can be suspended or terminated by court order, but through a claim that must be filed by the child or the person in charge of his or her care.

That is to say, the State does not automatically understand that whoever murders her partner cannot be a good father, as is the case in Argentina, Peru, Spain and several Mexican States.

On the island, it is time to start a judicial process, with all that that implies: bureaucracy, time and money.

“In general, in cases of gender violence, the belief of judges that they must preserve the relationship between children and aggressor parents is very common, understanding that the phenomenon of intimate partner violence is divorced from the bond. of filiation,” explains Patricia Santana Nina, lawyer specializing in gender, constitutional and judicial law.

Feminist struggles, Santana acknowledges, have many battles ahead in the Caribbean country;

this is one.

“Preserving the parental authority of the feminicide is part of the

continuum

of gender violence.”

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