A Frenchwoman condemned for having abandoned the child she had just adopted in the Congo

"During the week I spent with him, he was unmanageable," said Thursday at the helm of this forties.

A Frenchwoman was given a 10-month suspended prison sentence for neglecting a minor, we learned on Saturday from the Draguignan prosecutor's office (Var), for having abandoned the child she had come to adopt in Congo .

The criminal court also pronounced against this forties, social worker in an educational action service in an open environment, a ban on exercising a professional activity in contact with minors, thus depriving her of her job.

In 2018, after having followed all the steps allowing the adoption of an orphan, now eight years old, who was welcomed in an orphanage in Brazzaville, this woman from Fréjus (south-eastern France) finally had decided, during his first visit to the child, not to adopt him. "During the week that I spent with him, he was unmanageable," said Thursday at the bar this forties, according to comments reported by the regional daily Var-Matin and confirmed to AFP by one of the parties' lawyers. civil.

Child safety guaranteed

She also defended herself by explaining that she did not realize that the adoption process carried out at the Bethany reception center, an establishment created in Congo by nuns, was final. His lawyer, Me Juliette Bouzereau, pleaded, according to comments reported by Var-Matin, that "the prevention of abandonment" did not hold insofar as "the health and safety of the child" were "assured", that -ci having been left by the Frenchwoman in the orphanage where he was already welcomed.

Me Muriel Gestas, who defended the interests of the child at the trial in France, is now asking that personalized treatment be granted to him. "The full adoption annihilated any previous state and he is therefore now of French nationality," she explained, but still in the orphanage in Brazzaville.

According to her, justice wants to pass the file to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that the child, pupil of the Nation, is welcomed in France by the Childhood Social Assistance (ASE). "It would be better, rather than placement in a home, to seize a family affairs judge so that he can pronounce the forfeiture of parental authority and that he is then placed in a foster family", considers the lawyer. .

“Did you see, the white mom didn’t want you”

According to her, some families who have already adopted children in this orphanage would have indicated during the investigation that they were ready to welcome her.

“This child, who is no longer adoptable, is not an average case, he experienced a specific trauma after a first abandonment at the age of eight months and a new one when his mother [the French condemned] took him abandoned in the orphanage in front of all the other kids who tell him today you saw, the white mother she didn't want you , ”says Me Gestas.

In 2019, 421 children were adopted abroad by French nationals or foreigners residing in France, according to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Congo is the fifth country of origin (behind Vietnam, Colombia, Thailand and Haiti).

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