Spain sentenced over illegal adoption

THE European Court of Human Rights has sentenced Spain to pay €30,000 compensation to the mother of a Sahrawi girl who was adopted here without her consent. In 2002, the girl, who lived at a refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria, and was seven at the time, spent two months in Spain as part of a vacation programme organized by the Association of Friends of the Sahrawi People, but she stayed longer due to liver failure.

In March 2004, her mother asked for her to be sent back, and two months later, the Murcia Regional Government took her into care, claiming that she had been abandoned.

The mother has renounced to having her daughter returned to Algeria to protect her “emotional stability”, but has asked the court to take measures so this does not happen to other women.