Whether inside the walls of a house, in care institutions or residential communities, Sicilian news in recent years have repeatedly told stories – brutal – that speak of terrible and hidden violence. Different events in context and protagonists, but united by the same horror: abuse against people with disabilities, often young people, sometimes even minors. These are cases that emerge with difficulty, often after long silences, and which reveal the extreme vulnerability of those who live in conditions of fragility and dependence.
Among the best-known episodes is that of the Troina Oasis, in the Enna area, where during the 2020 lockdown a young woman with serious mental disabilities was the victim of sexual violence by a social and health worker. The discovery of the pregnancy triggered investigations, which culminated in arrests, trials and final convictions confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2023. Again in the province of Enna, another investigation was started in 2023 for alleged repeated violence against a girl with disabilities, with several suspects of different ages involved for events dating back to 2022. In Palermo, in December 2019, a doctor from an ASP facility was arrested for alleged sexual harassment against a paraplegic patient hosted at Villa delle Ginestre. Even before that, at the end of 2018, another story shook public opinion: a minor with a disability reported gang violence, leading in 2019 to the arrest and investigation of several young people between 16 and 18 years old.
This is violence, the result of double discrimination, which almost always remains hidden also because the attackers are often trusted figures: family members, partners, caregivers, healthcare workers. All circumstances that make this violence difficult to intercept due to the dependence that binds the fragile person to the support figure; due to the isolation of a life often lived in closed environments, institutions or family contexts that are not very open to the territory which reduces the possibility of asking for help.
And then perhaps the most unacceptable thing: the difficulty in telling and being believed. Because those who live with disabilities, especially cognitive ones, encounter obstacles in verbalizing abuse and a society that tends to infantilize or ignore the sexuality and rights of people with disabilities, amplifying the risk of unpunished violence.
Episodes that show a complex and painful picture, which requires answers: specific training of health and care personnel, truly accessible services, protected reporting procedures, and a cultural change that fully recognizes the rights, autonomy and dignity of people with disabilities.
For this reason in Messina, the Meter & Miles association launches an appeal to the institutions: to form a network for the creation of an anti-discrimination and anti-violence center, which will be a point of reference in the area to intercept what is hidden and support the victims. A first step to change a reality that too often takes place in silence, in the double brutality of violence against women with disabilities.