Finally, the Neuquén justice system had no choice but to recognize that the mother did not prevent the complainant from seeing his son and acted as a protector in a context of gender and vicarious violence.By Sol Tobía, for ANRed.For her first conversation with this medium in July 2025, Alexandra still had her son with her, but she knew what was coming.She separated from Claude Staicos, the current Press Secretary of Rolando Figueroa, as soon as she had her baby, M. in 2020, with the intention of leaving a relationship filled with mistreatment, verbal and physical attacks.At the end, the Neuquén official threatened to take the child away and even kidnapped her for several days until the police intervened.According to her testimony, backed by documents, images, and videos, Sabio complied with the visitation and dialogue instances with the progenitor, although he was absent from most and ended up reporting her for “contact obstruction,” initiating the case for which she has now been acquitted.For this reason, the protective mother, her lawyer Sara Barni, and the organizations that accompany her are demanding more strongly than ever that the child M. be returned to his mom.Photo: ATEN Capital.We reproduce the communiqué from Alexandra Sabio's companions:Today, the Appeals Court of the Province of Neuquén revoked the conviction against Jacqueline Alexandra Sabio and ordered her acquittal in the case initiated for the supposed crime of contact obstruction.This decision is not just a judicial outcome.Women who understood that when the criminal justice system is used to discipline those who try to protect their children, we are not facing an individual problem but a structural problem.Alexandra's acquittal does not erase the damage caused by the process, but it does set a limit: not every family conflict can or should be turned into a crime, and criminal justice cannot be used to punish those who try to safeguard their children.This result also demonstrates something fundamental: when women organize, support each other, and uphold the truth even in the most difficult moments, it is possible to reverse unjust decisions.To all those who were present at every hearing, at every meeting, in every message of support, in every gesture of accompaniment: this acquittal is also yours.We continue.It was under the pretext of this case that the Neuquén official launched an unprecedented judicial operation at Kindergarten No. 65 in Neuquén, which M. attended: on August 20, a group of armed police entered the establishment and, in front of the other children, snatched Alexandra's son from her arms, then beat her and arrested her.See this post on InstagramA post shared by Agencia de Noticias Red Acción (@anredaccion)Images of the injuries Alexandra Sabio suffered on her hands, arms, and legs when she was thrown to the floor and handcuffed while her child cried and screamed that he wanted to stay with her.Throughout the process, Staicos used his political and economic power and his status as a media entrepreneur to deploy a harassment apparatus against the mother and her companions.From solid censorship in national and provincial media around the case to bots and fake profiles on social media and the creation of an NGO against alleged “false complaints” of vicarious and gender violence, in tune with the overloaded conservative climate of recent years and the strengthening of misogynistic discourses like that of double femicide Pablo Laurta.Image of Claude Staicos, Press and Communication Secretary of the province of Neuquén, and active collaborator in Rolando Figueroa's electoral campaign, the current governor of the province of Neuquén.Since that August 20, Alexandra Sabio has not seen her son again and has only received vague and biased information about his physical and emotional health.Photo: ATEN Capital.Alexandra Sabio received the first good news in a long time: after almost seven months without seeing her five-year-old son, the Appeals Court of the Province of Neuquén revoked the conviction against her for supposedly having “obstructed contact” between her ex-partner, Claude Staicos, and the child.It is the recognition of a collective struggle that was sustained for years in the face of a process that criminalized a mother in a family conflict marked by violence.None of this would have been possible without the strength, conviction, and perseverance of the companions who accompanied this path.
