Lina, an 8-year-old girl yanked out of school and mom in forced health treatment
by Vincenza Palmieri
Vincenza Palmieri: “the place of growth, trust and security for excellence, the School, is hostage to the Psychiatric Supply Chain. Let’s bring back ‘all Children of the world,’ rehabilitate Families and restore Human Rights.”
Italy, a tragic story. A little girl, only 8 years old, was forcibly dragged away while at School and locked up in a “Special Institute,” a polite designation for what is in fact nothing more than a “Children’s Asylum.”
No one at School objected. The scene, violent, unbelievable, is that of an 8-year-old girl being dragged away like a criminal by the authorities. Those present watched, in a mixture of indifference, bewilderment, general impotence, at what is a crime of unprecedented severity, a violation of the basic Human Rights of an innocent girl.
And all this is increasingly happening, transforming the Italian School from a “safe place” to a site of intervention by the “authorities,” no one cries out, no one stands between innocence and injustice, no one opposes it.
On the other hand, what is the penalty for those who tried to oppose it?
The mother tried to oppose it. She had entrusted her daughter to an Institution whose job it is to raise her – as a young student, as a person, as a citizen with Values, Duties and Rights – safely.
What happened instead? That the mother, trusting in the Institutions, lost her child on that very instant of trust, at the hands of those who abused that trust, with unprecedented force, with violence.
The tearing of the Family thus also becomes the tearing of Trust.
What will that child be able to believe in, then?
And why does no one – except the mother suddenly deprived of everything – make any demand, in the face of such injustice, of the State and the Institutions?
Why is no one protesting? Why does no one cry out that little Lina was forcibly taken from school?
And why does no one ask the Ministry of Education and Merit[1]: where does the merit lie in this case?
What could this “special child” (and suddenly even more so, in the eyes of classmates, school staff, teachers) have done to deserve to be forcibly dragged out?
The answer to why no one raises his or her voice in the face of such reckless action lies in what happened to little Lina’s mother, the only one who found the strength, in desperation, to stand up against it.
The “rebellious” mother suffered the same fate as her daughter: she was forcibly taken away, and suffered an unvoluntary commitment (TSO), and then was sentenced to monthly depot injection (a “bomb” of slow-release psychotropic drugs): in effect, a lifelong mandatory health treatment.
This happens in Italy, in an Italian school, to an Italian child and to an Italian family. And “one” is a journalistic simplification, because it is actually a hundred, a thousand Italian families. So-called normal families.
Lina, I remember her fondly. She remembered me and, when we had our appointments, she would call me by name. She proudly memorized all the poems; and from the very beginning of first grade, she could already read and speak multiple languages.
She lived in a spacious house with a garden, surrounded by many toys, in the love of her family.
Mother had always opposed the administration of psychotropic drugs to Lina. She was told they were a “crutch” for her difficulties, but Mom believed it was preferable to use other means: educational toys, music, effective teaching programs.
This, with all evidence, clashes with the mechanisms of the Supply Chain and Psychiatry, which has tightened its steel shackles around a family that has been guilty of dissension, which has tried politely but firmly to oppose: “oppositional,” yeah, that’s the diagnosis.
Lina will no longer be able to stay in school with her classmates and will not be able – here’s the fault, more than merit! – to allow herself to be, in anything, not even a bit, “different.”
Here is the world in the hands of the Psychiatric Supply Chain: a world in which nonstandard children have to be locked up in Special Institutions.
In the 2000s, we can’t afford to be like Sparta – where the different, the children with disabilities were thrown off the cliff – and so now we have the Special Institutions.
Where did this child go wrong? Why doesn’t she also have the right to be free? How many children are in the same condition as little Lina? How many have been kidnapped and dragged away from their parents just because they carry a diversity?
And how many moms and dads have received an unvoluntary commitment (TSO) because they were trying by all means, driven by the desperation of the moment, to prevent their child from being taken away?
How many parents in Italy defend their children from forced withdrawal from School, from the primary Institution that should educate and protect our children?
When we incarcerate a child – it is really true – we arrest his whole family.
And in this case we sentence them to a devastating life sentence: lifelong psychopharmacological therapy, forever.
But if that is still not enough for the Supply Chain, it certainly is for us.
The work-our work-must be continued seamlessly, with everyone’s energy, everyone’s will, everyone’s correct procedures, and the humanitarian commitment that is the only way out: the Solution with a capital letter.
Our commitment today and always is to rehabilitate Mama and bring Lina home. And, with them, all the moms, all the parents and “all the Children of the world.”
Vincenza Palmieri
[1] This is the name of the Ministry of Education in Italy
