Alida’s today is the work she carries out on a farm, it is the serenity she lives at home with her three children. But until three years ago his life was very different. Alida has a history of violence at the hands of her husband; years of abuse and mistreatment, on her and her children. Then escape and salvation: “I said to myself ‘I’m ready’ and ran away from my husband. I didn’t go back. The fear is still there but there is also freedom”. Like a mechanical ritual, a cliché that is repeated in these cases, made up of brutality and ferocity, slaps and punches, the story of Alida (the name is fictional), forty years old of Albanian origin, is no exception. Arrived in 2005 in Italy, in Rome, where she joined her husband, a bricklayer, her compatriot, her married life soon turned into a nightmare. “At the beginning – he tells ANSA – we were fine together, we got along well. But after the arrival of the children (three boys, now they are 13, 10 and 9 years old) things changed. I discovered that he drank and played with video games. That’s where he threw his money. My life changed. If I protested he was aggressive. ‘I know what to do, you don’t command me’, he said. Plus I suffered violent outbursts of jealousy, he controlled me “. Since 2013, life at home has worsened. Plus there is no money, his salary goes into drinking and games. “Often I didn’t know what to feed my children. When he came home he was drunk and they were beaten up, for me and for them. He didn’t take care of us.”
Following an eviction after a year of unpaid rent, social services intervened: mother and children were hosted for a few months in a family home. “At that time no one knew about the mistreatment I was undergoing, I never talked about it, I was ashamed. I was wrong. He every time, after the violent quarrels, asked me for forgiveness”. Then the fortuitous arrival in a house, inside a religious structure: the first anchor of salvation. “There were some nuns who came to visit us. I began to understand that I had to ask for help and I talked to the nuns.” At the end of a bad episode in which the man had locked up his wife and children, Alida managed to escape, helped by the nuns and social services, and entered a refuge for a few months. Later, contact came with the Telefono Rosa association which protected her in a house and followed her on the path of rebirth for two years and which led her slowly towards autonomy. During this period she also faced the disease of her youngest son, a leukemia, which forced her with her baby in the hospital for months: “now my son is fine”. But of this experience, Alida speaks of a school, almost a rediscovery of life: “during this period I learned a lot, the operators taught me many things. I learned to find a way, to go to the doctor. I had never done it before. I learned to live and even found a job. I take care of home orders for organic products from a farm. ” “How much has my life changed? A lot. Before I never had a good moment, only and always bad moments. When my husband beat me I felt my life was over. I took so many blows, once he hit me so hard that broke an eardrum.
I’m fine now. I also have friends with whom I hang out and talk to. I am calm, I enter the house calm. The fear remains, it is not easy but then I tell myself that I have not done anything wrong and that you cannot live with a violent man. Before I felt weak, now I feel stronger “. Alida is, as they say,” one made it “, a positive testimony:” I sought help and I did not turn back. I did it for my children and for me. I see them happy and I talk to them a lot, I teach them respect for women “. To those who are now still subjected to violence” I tell them not to wait, ask for help, run away “.
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Source From: Ansa
I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years now and I have worked for some of the biggest news websites in the world. My focus has always been on entertainment news, but I also cover a range of other topics. I am currently an author at Global happenings and I love writing about all things pop-culture related.
