My name is Clara* and I am from Argentina. I have two daughters who are studying at a university in Argentina. Since 2023, I have been fighting to regain my place in my son’s life, with the help of my solicitor. This is my story.

In 2022, a very close friend of mine, whom I will call ‘G’, whom I met in 2007 when I was studying English, called me. He works in Europe and lives with his partner. They are both very wealthy.

At the time, I had recently separated, lost a child a few years earlier, and was not feeling well. During our conversation, G asked me to become the mother of his child. He said that the three of us would form a family. I was happy to help them become parents, and to become a mother again myself. I accepted this wonderful project. He mentioned the possibility of marrying me to make it easier for them to obtain papers in France. We would be a family of three in Europe. I would live on one floor of their large house and they would live on the other; we would raise the child together.

I know it may sound strange, but it felt strange to me at first too. I won’t lie — I didn’t want to upset him. I thought to myself, ‘Well, the world is changing so much that I’m going to become a mother this way.’ They brought me to France on a tourist visa. As I was in the early stages of menopause, they arranged for in vitro fertilisation in Spain using my friend’s partner’s sperm and donor eggs. The doctor suggested a donor with dark skin, like mine. However, ‘G’ insisted on a donor with fair skin and blue eyes. I refused.

It was a high-risk pregnancy: I was 41 years old at the time and had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and hypothyroidism. During the pregnancy, I had to go to hospital four times.

From the outset of my pregnancy, I found it extremely challenging to coexist with them. They argued a lot and started behaving very coldly towards me, as if it were a job. Gradually, the idea of a happy family life together disappeared. They decided that I should live in the neighbouring town and that I would only see the baby at weekends after he was born. G took my passport, but fortunately returned it to me four months later. I no longer recognised him; he had become a completely different person.

However, I thought I had to carry on since, after all, they were the parents and I was the mother, and we were going to start a family. I told myself that I had to put up with things, which unfortunately only got worse.

 The delivery was difficult and a caesarean section had to be performed. When the child was born, G presented himself to the hospital staff as my partner. They prevented me from holding my son, saying that I was tired. They told the nursing staff that I couldn’t breastfeed him because I was going back to work. That wasn’t true. They forced me to express milk. I agreed because I thought that if the baby became too dependent on me, it would cause him distress later on. There was also the €300 they sent every month for my daughters. I had no job and no connections. I didn’t speak French yet either. I had no money. They paid all my expenses, but my visa had expired, so I couldn’t go out without being very discreet. I couldn’t ask for help, and I had to keep my word.

When I dared to protest, the tension between us increased. They made me write a curriculum vitae and told me that they could no longer support me. I had not yet recovered from my caesarean section, so I asked them for a little more time as I was still finding it very difficult to walk. However, without consulting me, they organised my departure to Spain, where I knew nobody except a vague Facebook contact in Murcia. It took five car changes via BlaBlaCar and a bus journey to get there — a distance of 1,500 km. ‘G’ accompanied me to the bus in Barcelona to Murcia, then flew back immediately.

The person I stayed with helped me and put me in touch with a solicitor. By leaving my son like that, I risked being accused of child abandonment. I called ‘G’, begging him to let me return to France. I naively told him that I risked being prosecuted for child abandonment. I then learned that they had immediately filed a complaint against me for child abandonment.

While in Spain, I was put in touch with solicitors Ambroselli and Montesinos. They organised my repatriation to France and have supported me in all my efforts, including with paperwork, work and legal action to regain custody of my son.

Thanks to their efforts, I can now see my son for two hours every fortnight under social services supervision. However, for me, this is only a first step: I hope to be reunited with my son, who is now two years old, one day.

This speech was read by Clara* at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025. Clara* has used a pseudonym due to ongoing legal action.