Credits: inchiostroverde.it
I read the tragic story of Carmela Cirella, a little girl who was only 13 years old, and it filled me with a mix of sadness and anger... I write "was" because unfortunately she is no longer here, but her story deserves to be known and told so that as many people as possible can know it and it is not forgotten.
Raised in Italy in a difficult context, in 2006 she was a victim of a first abuse, archived by the justice system, no one paid and she remained marked by that event. Those who should have protected her did not do so nor gave her the necessary support and her parents began to keep her more and more inside the house causing her frustration, until one day she decided to escape from that prison. The following 4 days would be hell.
I started a diary, I called it the worst story of my life
She meets a minor boy, who abuses her and then delivers her to another man of 46 years, who repeats the violence. She manages to escape and reach a friend she was in love with and who instead of helping and protecting her also abuses her. She manages to escape there too but meets two men in their twenties who capture her and also commit violence against her. All this in just 96 hours, hours of fear, violence and abuse.
Finally arriving at the emergency room, the report was clear: sexual violence. But the institutions continued to look away, the investigations remained stalled, the blood-stained clothes returned without any analysis... in the interrogations at the police station it was insinuated that maybe it was partly her fault... The juvenile court decided without the family’s consent to lock her in a community where she was given psychotropic drugs, as if the problem were her and not those who had stolen her childhood. In 2007, at 13 years old, without support, without justice, without hope, she took her own life. Before doing so, she shouted: "I am Carmela", a scream against the indifference she had suffered. It was a cry towards a system that had failed, towards a society that had left her alone. Her death remained for 7 years without culprits until her diary was found where she described everything she had suffered in detail and finally a trial was opened. Full justice will never be done, the minor culprits get probation, the two men in their twenties get 10 years in prison and the man of 46 years was acquitted, being a naval officer he had connections to escape...
Her father later founded the association "I am Carmela" in her memory to support victims of violence and promote prevention.
What hurts me most about this story is not only what those men did to her. It is everything that happened afterward, which is nothing short of shameful. She was not only a victim of her attackers but was a victim of a system that failed at every single step, which even harmed her.
The disgust for the whole system is enormous, a system that archives a terrible violence as if it were nothing, that returns blood-stained clothes without even analyzing them that despite clear reports, during an interrogation insinuates that "maybe it is partly her fault". Everything is rotten up to the court that instead of doing justice, decides to lock a 13-year-old victim in a community, fill her with psychotropic drugs, instead of truly protecting her. It is a justice that moves late, badly, and in the end punishes almost no one.
"I am Carmela" is not only the last scream of a little girl. It is the cry that belongs every day to girls and women who suffer similar violence, it is the voice of all the girls who were told to be quiet, not to exaggerate, not to ruin someone’s life.
Too often, the world continues to protect the aggressors and punish the victims. Carmela deserved life, protection, justice. Violence is not only the act itself, but also indifference, suspicion, blame, slowness, closed doors.
And as long as we continue to see light sentences, endless trials, acquittals that reek of protection, as long as we continue to see survivors treated as problems to manage instead of people to protect, no one will ever really be safe... and all this happens today, in the 2000s not the 1800s.
References:
https://bari.repubblica.it/cronaca/2013/06/05/news/nel_diario_di_carmela-58719359/
Di Giovanni, A., & Barengo, M. (2013). Io so’ Carmela.