International Conventions and their Application in new Family Realities

Verónica Valenzuela – Social Worker

Boys, Girls and teenagers[children-adults][offspring-parents]

Parenthood and Gender [male-female]

[father-mother]Geographical

Dispersion[Physical and geographical separation]

Migration movements and

Transnational Family ConstructionLack of educational

opportunities

Injustice and social inequality

Globalization and ease in the crossing of the border

SOCIAL SYSTEM – COMPLEX SYSTEM

Sociopolitical, economic and labour instability

Factors that have an affect on International Migration

[Support/Expulsion]

Technology, Transportation y comunication (media)

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS THAT AFFECT THE SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE PRACTICES OF THESE FAMILIES

SELECTION

• Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations 20th November 1989).

WHICH ARE THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS THAT INTERVENE IN THE SELECTED PHENOMENON?• Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance (United Nations - New York 20th June

1956).

• Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and other forms of Family Maintenance (La Haya 23rd November 2007) (Agreement pending to subscribe by Chile).

HOW DOES AGE AFFECT THE SELECTED PHENOMENON?

Boys and girls don’t access these agreements directly, which is paradoxical, because they intend to guarantee their rights (in this case, the right to maintenance).In Chile, minors under the age of 18 are considered incapacitated, ergo, they require representation for any legal matter.

There is a “black figure” regarding the necessity of boys and girls to receive maintenance, because, if their legal representatives (generally the mothers), don’t feel the need to exercise their rights, they will remain in a situation of vulnerability, without access, because of a limitation of the structure.

Children that have Access to the Right of Maintenance

(Tip of the Iceberg – Visible)

BLACK FIGURE

Unrated Percentage of boys and girls that are vulnerable and have a social

exclusion situation (Invisible)

Only 5% of maintenance applications correspond to young adults between 18 and

24 years old, students that don’t require representation to access directly to the

New York Convention.

HOW DOES PARENTHOOD AND GENDER AFFECT THE SELECTED PHENOMENON?Most of the maintenance applications that the Chilean authority receives are requests from women [mothers], that act on behalf of their sons or daughters.

[There is a relevant percentage of fathers/men that are capable of an attachment with their children despite the distance, fulfilling – in this

case – their maintenance duty. These are situations that never get to be intervened by this authority].

This allows us to observe that parenthood acts according to the gender distinction: the women/mothers remain in charge of caring for the children, while the men/fathers that migrate, seem to detach themselves easily, economically and/or emotionally.

Story N°1:

(…) He told me that many of his friends had gone to Germany, Spain and other countries

searching for opportunities, and that they did well… He wanted to do the same. “He

said he would come back and get us” and those things people say without thinking.

Finally, he decided to travel, even though the children were still very little (13, 7 and the

youngest was 3). This happened in August of 2001, when he decided to “look for a

future for his children”. For a year we had contact over the phone and we would get

weekly letters from Spain that only had the address from the post office. When he left,

he only left USD $292.- and the promise of returning.

We started having economic problems because the rent was too expensive, so we had to

move to a slum… my children went hungry. I had to maintain the household and pay for

university. One day I received a letter from this man in which he asked for money because

he wanted to return. Obviously I wasn’t willing to help; several years had gone by, in

which he never sent a dime for his children, leaving them in complete abandonment.

Considering all of the sad moments, all of the disappointment, that person who had been

so important in their lives, wasn’t anymore: he is just the father of the children, a father

they don’t know and for whom they feel nothing. They just demand, at this moment, the

help that he has denied to them for 11 years.(Written story brought by a mother, user of the International Office, November 27th, 2012).

The records for the application of the “New York Convention” (*) indicate that from a total of 191 maintenance applications, 94% come from women [mothers] and 6% from men [fathers that hold custody of their children].

78% of the applications come from abroad.

22% are applications from Chile to other countries.

The countries that have the highest percentage of requests are Argentina (25%) and Spain (18%).

“Fathers with the custody of their children” is an upward trend, predicting a much more equal division of responsibility for the children between the father and the mother in case of a separation. However, women are still the ones responsible for the direct care of the children.

* From 2011 to August 2015.

¿HOW DOES GEOGRAPHICAL DISPERSION AFFECT THE SELECTED PHENOMENON?Families don’t require a day-to-day common space. There are deep ties that don’t require the sharing of a house or the same territory. This approach allows us to observe the emergence of the families with transnational characteristics.

About this, the state of the art tells us:

(…) Despite the distance, several studies show that families stay as an institution by

adapting to the new reality and by looking for new ways to maintain and strengthen

family ties (such as economic, affective and caring ) in a new transnational structure.

(…) This is new regarding the earlier eras: the material

possibilities offered by new technology, transportation and

communication, allow social relations that help

transnational family units to continue acting like a family.

(…) Besides, the frequent contact also eases the emotional

cost of the separation (Parella, 2007, p. 155 y 159).

(…) We lived in Peru. In September of 2005, my son’s father went to Argentina, supposedly to look for “a better life” for us (…) He started sending me money but he would skip some months, when he didn’t have enough. I decided to go to Chile, where I had the support of my father and older sister. I travelled in August of 2006 when my son was 10 months old (…) I came to look for a better future and left my son with my mother, in Peru. In September of 2006 I started working, and from that day I’ve been sending money for my son (the father was still sending the same amount as he always had, which was around USD $30 to $60 a month). I decided to call the father to rekindle our relationship, and fight for our son together. In September of 2007 he came to Chile and we lived in my father’s house. Every month, we would send money to our son, who was still with my mother. After a while, my son’s father and I broke up, and he returned to Argentina in September, 2008 (…) We could never have a mature conversation, so he would discuss any matter related to our son directly with my mother.

Story N° 2:

I continued to send money to my mother, and I would always call my son. I would speak with him constantly and never stopped caring for him (…) My mother would tell me that the father would only send money when he could (I would send USD $100 and sometimes USD $120 every month). The father would never call to know about his son. In February, 2011 we met in Peru to baptize our son, who was already 5 years old. We talked as adults, and decided the child would come with me to Chile, because the father had a life in Argentina and couldn’t take care of him (besides, the idea was that he could be with me, the mother). I didn’t want to separate him from my mother either, who had raised him since he was a baby, because he would suffer too much (…) In April, 2012 my father travelled to Peru and when he got back, he brought my mother, my brothers and my son. The child travelled with the permission of his father, though I had to wait a long time to get it (…) My son’s father hasn’t sent money or communicated with him since the 7th of November, 2011.

(Written story from a mother, user of the International Office, February 22nd 2013).

In some transnational motherhood practices, it is possible to observe feelings of guilt,

frustration, and ambivalence: these are women who experience the distance from their

children -who are in their country of origin- with great sadness.

But there are also cases that don’t wish to regroup, because they value the life their

children have in their countries of origin, and the fact that they don’t have to submit

them to the sacrifices that come with migration (González, 2012).

It is necessary to expand our observation capacity:

Families seem to defy the traditional configuration of “mother – father – separated”:

1) Defying “having” to share a common space or territory to keep building and acting like a family;

2) Gradually changing the possibility that the children “must” remain under the care of the mothers [and not the fathers], changing the gender tradition (“being a mother/woman” is linked to the direct care of the children and “being a father/man”, is linked to being the provider, many times from a peripheral perspective)

The social complexity and the migration phenomenon have allowed fathers and mothers to alter their roles without the distinction of gender.

It is perfectly possible that a mother may migrate wanting to economically support her children, leaving them with the father at the country of origin.

Thank you very much!

The need to integrate boys and girls in the effective exercise of their rights will still remain as a social challenge. There is a need to create a way to allow them to access these conventions directly, as well as other forms of representation.