QWhen they found him they gave him the name of Vittorio Fortunato, to bring him luck in a life that started out difficult. The child abandoned by his mother as soon as he was born, thrown into the garbage by his father who pretended to find him by chance in Ragusaentrusted to a family that loves him, must return to the woman who gave birth to him.
The story of Miele, the child abandoned in a bag in Ragusa three years ago
«We are the mother and father of a child welcomed into our arms 3 years ago thanks to National Adoption, on International Children’s Rights Day. For privacy reasons we will call him here by the nickname we have always given him, that is Miele”. This is how it beginsa petition that the little boy’s parents launched on Change.org. They have collected almost 35 thousand signatures to ask to be able to continue to raise and protect their child now that the natural mother has asked and received him back. The child must be returned to the woman by December 28th, che is still on criminal trial for complicity in child abandonment.
The petition of the pre-adoptive parents
«Miele was only 16 days old when we picked him up for the first time, in a warm onesie and a pacifier». In the text of the petition, the foster parents recall the child’s story, which is theirs. Immediately after the birth the child was placed by the biological mother in a shopping bag, with the umbilical cord unclamped, and handed over to the biological father who, after abandoning him for two long hours in the street, staged the discovery until the arrival of the police and ambulance. Miele arrived at the hospital suffering from severe hypothermia and hypoglycemia and fought for his life, eventually managing to survive.
The Catania Juvenile Court entrusted him to them who had been on the waiting list for adoption for some time. And he declared, in the absence of signs of interest and recognition from anyone, first his adoptability and then after two months his pre-adoptive custody.
The abandoned child must return to his birth mother
According to the law, if pre-adoptive foster care is in place, late recognition by the biological family can no longer occur (article 11 L. 184/83). Nor can you request the revocation of the child’s adoptability status (article 21 L. 184/83). But the lawyer Angelo Iemmolo, who defends the biological mother, noted that his client she was not heard by the judges, as required by law, before the declaration of adoptability which then decays. Furthermore, the child’s mother was declared fit to raise him by a pool of experts appointed by the court of Catania, his lawyer specified.
The full interest of the minor
«The decree provides how “return” date 12/28/23 and writes in black and white that social services are authorized to even make use of the police for the forced withdrawal of the child from our home, in the “full interest of the child”». But “There is nothing in this story that is in the best interests of the child”, denounce the foster parents in their appeal. «He has always known only one mother and one father: us, who love him unconditionally just as he loves us madly».
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