Spain has partially pardoned a woman who was imprisoned for kidnapping her child.
The Spanish government partially pardoned a woman convicted of kidnapping her child in a high-profile custody battle on Tuesday, bringing the scourge of domestic violence into focus.
The Spanish court sentenced Juana Rivas to two and a half years in prison for kidnapping and violating a 2017 court order to hide with her two children for one month instead of handing them to her Italian ex-husband. The convicted wife-Beater.
Women’s groups condemned the court order to hand over her child to their father. Supporters used the hashtag #JuanaEstaEnMiCasa to unite around her cause, which means “Juana is in my house.”
Rivas finally came out of hiding, and her children returned to Italy to be with their father, who was sentenced to three months in prison in Italy after a court there found him guilty of beating his wife in 2009.
The Spanish government’s pardon reduced Rivas’ sentence to one year and three months and overturned the court’s decision to cancel her custody. Instead, she will have to do community service for 180 days.
Government spokesperson Isabel Rodriguez said that the government “considered the interests of her child and the circumstances that this woman must face when making the decision to be sentenced”.
This incident caused divisions in Spain. Some criticized Rivas for refusing to comply with court orders, while others used her case as evidence that Spanish courts did not take domestic abuse claims seriously.
In a complaint against her ex-husband in Spain, Rivas said he would lock her in a room for several hours and beat her. Her eldest son “suffered great pain and witnessed many things.”
However, a psychologist assigned to examine his son found no signs of trauma or evidence of domestic violence.
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