Children slapped, insulted, restrained in chairs and strollers. These are some of the abuses that occurred at a nursery school in Benevento , leading to the issuing of residency bans against five teachers, both lay and religious, accused of complicity in aggravated child abuse . The order was issued by the investigating judge of the Benevento Court, at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office, headed by Gianfranco Scarfò, following an investigation conducted by the Carabinieri.
The investigation began following a complaint filed by the representative of a cooperative engaged in social and educational activities . The investigation , involving audio and video interceptions, documented a series of abuses against children between the ages of 10 months and 3 years , some of whom were not yet able to walk. Specifically, forced restraints were discovered (the children were pinned to chairs with their own clothing or confined to strollers for prolonged periods), insults (about the child's clothing, build, or name), physical violence (slaps to the back of the head, pulling hair, pushing to the ground, even when the children were still crawling), inappropriate punishments, and the use of force to force the children to eat and sleep.
"The atmosphere," reads a statement from the Prosecutor's Office, "was perceived as abusive by the children themselves, some of whom had developed the instinct to cover their faces with their hands as soon as they noticed a teacher approaching, in an instinctively defensive manner."
(Unioneonline)
