PAVIA. «There are families with fewer rights than others. In the eyes of the law, it is as if my son were the orphan of a parent: we are hostage of the bureaucracy that does not recognize our love, the only thing that matters when it comes to family.” Carmen F., 36 years old, a baker in Viale Cremona, took to the streets to tear away the cloak of invisibility that still suffocates thousands of Italian homo-parental families (made up of people of the same sex), victims of the regulatory void that denies them the right to grow children as nuclei formed by a man and a woman.
pavia
Two thousand march at Pavia Pride: “We are people, not ideologies”
Daniela Scherrer
02 June 2024
With her is her partner Daniela C., 37 years old, employed in the shop, and their two and a half year old child, the culmination of the civil union celebrated in 2019: they parade at Pavia Pride together with the other families who animate the segment of Rainbow Families, an association founded in 2005 to defend the rights of same-sex parents. The group represents over 500 families in Lombardy and around thirty between Pavia and the province.
«As if I were a single mother»
«Italian law doesn’t make our life easy» adds Daniela, linked to Carmen by a relationship started 17 years ago. But neither time nor feelings are enough to make them mothers with full rights, at least according to the rules. «I was the one who carried out the pregnancy – says Daniela – but for the State it is as if I were a single mother, because Carmen is not recognized as a parent even though our son is also hers. Life throws this reality in our faces every day: to request the single child allowance issued by the INPS, for example, I had to declare that our son was born to an unknown father, otherwise the procedure would not have proceeded. Furthermore, to take him for vaccinations, Carmen needs a written proxy from me authorizing her to accompany him.” But sometimes the sense of humanity goes beyond bureaucratic quibbles: «By now the doctors at the vaccination center know us and luckily they have stopped asking for delegation every time – continues Carmen -. However, discrimination remains: if our child was born to a couple of heterosexual parents we would not have to subject ourselves to this process. In order to protect him, my partner and I turned to a notary to appoint me as legal guardian, in case something happened to her. We live in a country that fills its mouth with the sacredness of the family but then abandons thousands of children born to same-sex parents.”
At the head of the segment of the Rainbow Families there is also Elena Mantovani, an agent of the local police of Milan and one of the founders of the Lombard group: «I am 62 years old and given my age I would have preferred to spend the afternoon on the sofa, yet I am here to defend the rights of children, given that one of the first acts of the Meloni government was to block the transcription of birth certificates of children born abroad to same-sex couples.”
