Imagine that overnight they tell you that your daughter is no longer your daughter", this is how Elisa and Camilla, a couple of Italian mothers living in Barcelona, summarize the "nightmare" they are living . The lives of these women have collapsed after the Prosecutor's Office of Padua - their hometown - took them to trial for erasing the name of the non-pregnant mother from the birth certificate and her surname from the name of the minor , three years old.
The far-right Government of Giorgia Meloni issued an instruction in January in which it prohibits the filiation of children of homosexual couples and the registration of the non-pregnant mother in same-sex couples. This order constitutes another setback and a limitation of rights for LGTBI families with children, and retroactively affects all children born after 2017. "They are children who already have a built identity and it will have a very strong emotional impact on them ”, explains Camilla, a mother who would lose all her daughter's legal rights.
There is a legal gap to carry out these registrations, since the law does not explicitly prohibit registering the children of same-parent families. That is why some progressive mayors of cities such as Padua, Milan or Rome have registered all these years the children of homosexual couples conceived by any method, for the sake of the child's well-being. The situation changed when the Interior sent circulars to all councils in March to stop the registration of children of same-sex couples. "Some mayors obeyed, but many others continued in an act of civil disobedience so as not to leave these children without the same rights as the rest", they explain.
After this decision by Meloni, the last step has been taken by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Padua, which has summoned to the courts some 33 families of lesbian couples to cancel the surnames of the non-pregnant mothers in the registers. The court has already set the first hearing for November 14.
"If I am removed from the register I will not be able, at best, to pick her up from school or take her to the doctor. But not only that, if something happens to Elisa, our daughter would be orphaned and put up for adoption", explains Camilla in anguish.
Among the legal possibilities they have, beyond exhausting the three judicial instances, there is the option for Camilla to adopt her daughter. The couple has already contacted two lawyers, both in Spain and Italy, to explore all the legal possibilities.
Angelo Schillaci, professor of public law at the Sapienza University of Rome and member of the legal team of Famiglie Arcobaleno (Rainbow Families), has recommended that they exhaust the judicial process and, in the event that they end up erasing Camilla from the register , start its adoption. He points out, however, that it is a procedure with "very high" costs, not only in terms of time and money, but also in the symbolic and emotional spheres. "It would be surreal if strangers came home to evaluate a family that already exists, added to the fact that we might have to go back to Italy", they express.
At the same time, the lawyer Joaquim Juncosa, from Jurif Advocats and the Associació de Fámílies Lesbianes y Gais (FLG) recommends that they sign a document in front of a notary to certify that both are the mothers of the minor in case of any something happens to them. "My advice is to take advantage of the legal resources that the country gives them to have coverage against other states." Juncosa has also recommended that they get married here and thus include their daughter in the Spanish family book.
While they are exploring all legal possibilities, they are waiting to see how the first challenges from the Prosecutor's Office will be resolved. Although they feel very supported by civil society, they need "a stronger response from the Italian left". And they warn, in allusion to the presence of the extreme right in Spain: "We do not believe that our rights have been conquered, because at any moment everything can change".
