Italian “Sociale” pushes a Tunisian girl to attempt suicide Featured

By Amal Salah March 15, 2023 4067

My name is Nabil Dridi, and I am from Tunisia. I am married to a Ukrainian woman, and we have three daughters. My wife and I were fooled by the "Social" organization, which took advantage of an emergency we were experiencing and took the three daughters from our arms. That was in 2018, and they promised to return the girls to us in a few weeks, which has yet to occur.

February 28, 2023?

  • One day before the accident, on Tuesday evening, at eight o'clock in the evening, our weekly date where we talk to the girls via video chat; sound and image.
  • My daughter Alia (17 years old) was the first to speak, at that time she was smiling, and said: Papa, I have a little bad news.
  • All the bad things came to my mind, and thoughts crowded in my head.  I said to her: "What happened"?
  • She pointed to her hand, which was tied with gauze, and slowly removed the gauze to show me and her mother the marks of what seemed to be a razor blade.
  • I was terrified of her and exclaimed: "Why did you do that"?
  • However, she answered with the same smile and calmness: They are forcing us to do so, then she left the phone to her two sisters and turned away from them.

What was the reaction of you and her mother?

Immediately after the end of the conversation, I called the social supervisor responsible for them, but she did not answer my call.

I was expecting her to call me the next morning to complain about Alia and how she had harmed herself, but the morning passed without her calling. I tried to call her repeatedly, but she did not answer. I sent her a message on the phone which she read but she didn't reply.

Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 12:00 p.m.

It was a quarter past six o'clock in the evening when I received a phone call from the social worker telling me to hurry to the hospital.

Why? I cried.

She said that Alia had made a critical error and that you should go to the hospital right away.

I asked if she had cut her wrist again.

She said, "No, she hurled herself from the second floor," knowing that the second level of the care building is high, thus children attempting to escape are discouraged.

When did that occur? I asked.

She replied: At one o'clock in the afternoon, and she is now in the intensive care unit, in an unstable state.

I shut up the phone and hurried in my work attire to the hospital.

Didn't you tell the mother what happened?

I wanted to check on Alia first and then go back and tell my wife in a calm way so that she would not suffer a heartbreak and have a nervous breakdown.

I was trying to pull myself together and gather every ounce of my strength to hold myself together. I got to the hospital and saw her from behind the glass, but I wish I hadn't seen her.

How was her health at the time?

She was wrapped in gauze from head to toe, breathing through a respirator.

 I wept for her, for myself, and for the dream of liberty, justice, and humanity. I saw them all dead next to my daughter.

Then I spoke with the lawyer who is part of the gang, and I know that he works for them as he is appointed by them. The lawyer showed the indifference I expected.

I tried to contact the administrator, but she refused to answer any of my calls.

My body finally gave out, and I began to feel the stroke symptoms once more slowly approaching me.

I recited a little from the Qur'an to calm myself while praying to Allah to remove the danger from my daughter.

What made your daughter do that, in your opinion?

My daughter committed suicide to escape beating and torture. They practice the worst kind of cruelty on children, and I have already told you this in my conversations with you. They traffic in our children and profit from that. What is happening is crimes, but under the auspices of the law and the state!

The first words my daughter uttered after that were: “They are the ones who pushed me to commit suicide, to get rid of my life.”

Therefore, I consider it a crime, in which the murderer is the social worker, the organization she belongs to and everyone who works in it.

What happened the day after your daughter's suicide attempt?

- My wife and I went to the hospital after I told her what happened to Alia. I left my wife with her and went to the social worker, who was surrounded by many policemen in cahoots with her. She refused to talk to me or tell me any details, so I looked at the police to ask them, but they were no different from the female guide, so I did not receive a definitive answer.

I left my wife with my daughter and went to the police station to meet the chief of police, who had initially refused to meet me, but with my insistence I was able to enter him.

He asked me coldly: What do you want?

I replied: I accuse the social worker and the home of trying to kill my daughter.

He answered with the same calmness accompanied by sarcasm: What is your evidence for that? Your daughter has thrown herself off the balcony.

I told him that the violence and torture that takes place in the home for the girls pushes them to commit suicide. And I had presented you with more than one video and audio recording of the violence that takes place in the Social Welfare Home, which is supposed to protect children from violence. But everything I have presented is locked up in your desk drawers, Because you are part of the same system!

He wanted to get me out, but I was determined to file a complaint accusing the house, the organization and all the complicit agencies.

At last he acquiesced, at my insistence, though I knew the complaint would never leave his desk drawer.

What did you do with the guide and the house?

I asked the counselor to unpack the surveillance cameras for the day of the accident and the day before, but she vehemently refused.

I asked her to record the conversations between my daughters and me in the few weeks before the accident, but she also refused.

I went to the nursing home to see my other two daughters and talk to them, and they said: Their sister Alia was being tortured for and without reason, and that they used all methods of violence on the girls, and recently they began threatening the girls with transferring them to a psychiatric hospital, and they had to bear the consequences of that. This prompted my daughter to attempt suicide to get rid of the painful torment that continued day and night in the nursing home.

What is Alia's health status now?

  She was transferred by helicopter to a large hospital in Naples, still under the influence of anesthesia, and still breathing through a respirator.

And I am continuing my battle with them. I will not give up, even though they threatened me when I posted what happened on my personal Facebook page. They threatened that my voice would not reach anyone.

But I did not acquiesce. I spoke to Radio Tunis and told what happened. It was the only Arab party that allowed me to speak after your platform, which has been with us since the beginning of the battle.

Now we are waiting for God Almighty's mercy upon us, and the recovery of my daughter, who is still a flower that has not blossomed.

The father’s voice disappeared behind the crowding of thoughts and ideas, but I still remember these words from him with which he concluded his dialogue with us a year ago, when he said: “It is as if we are not human beings or citizens. 5 years!

We suffer in deadly silence, let all who can stand firm, but those who are weary will fall.”

As for me, I will remain steadfast, if everyone falls. This is how a father should be.