A mother and daughter from Ecuador who had been living in Belgium without papers for 4 years were about to get on a plane bound for Quito, but after a grassroots campaign which brought to light charges of abuse, a Belgian judge decided to halt the deportation order.

Judge Moris said this Monday that the arrest of Angélica, who spent 29 days with her mother in a closed center for the undocumented, caused her “trauma which constitutes inhumane and degrading treatment” which violates Article 3 of the European Human Rights Convention.

The family’s lawyer, Selma ben Khelifa, had presented as evidence a psychological report dated July 5, another from the 19th and the conclusions of the child’s defender, Claude Lelièvre, who last week asked that the deportation order be nullified.

According to Spain’s 20 Minutos, Angélica’s mother, even as she was waiting to be taken to the airport for her deportation, was brutally beaten on her fingers and legs, something almost unheard of in Belgium, home to the seat of the European Union.

How did this all begin? According to Spain’s El Mundo, Angelica and her mother had been living in Belgium for 4 years, were well-integrated and the girl was enjoying school. One day while on the street a citizen called out to the police to report that they were “two gypsies suspected of being thieves because of the color of their skin”.

Destined to be an international story, there’s another interesting twist in all of this: the First Lady of Ecuador, Anne Malherbe (pictured at left), is Belgian. And she had something to say about all of this:

The First Lady of Ecuador says that she feels “terrible shame for being Belgian. We didn’t know that this was possible in Belgium and both of us are very surprised by the fact that these things happen. there are more children [in the detention center] who are even smaller than Angelica and they can only go outside for an hour per day.”

Angélica’s father, also undocumented, took it upon himself to call media attention to the case, thanks to which public support among Belgians was bolstered.

Via / 20 Minutos and El Mundo