A Marshal's Courage: Saving a Disabled Woman from Abuse

A disabled woman was saved from the hands of a violent man, who exploited her weakness, by the Carabinieri marshal Martina Cassarino, Sicilian by birth but Neapolitan by adoption, who with her sensitivity as a woman freed the 46-year-old from the chains that had imprisoned her. Stationed in Torre del Greco, in the province of Naples, a difficult territory where there are numerous cases of gender violence, Marshal Cassarino succeeded in her intention by empathizing with the victim, "feeling her pain, her needs as a woman." In essence, understanding that only by feeling as she did could she truly help her. "The true beauty of a woman lies in her character and her courage in the ability to face difficulties and make her way in life and work." The incident that saw her as the protagonist is recent: the man was neutralized thanks to an arrest made possible by a report. "I felt on my skin the denigration and humiliation," explains Marshal Cassarino, "the victim needed encouragement because that man was hitting her by exploiting the disability." The ex, often under the influence of drugs, threatened and humiliated her: "I'll kill you, I'll set you on fire with gasoline, I'll cut off your other leg and put you in a wheelchair." In this phase, the marshal's help was decisive: "I wanted her to feel confident in herself," explains Martina, "to understand that a woman is never inferior to a man. She understood and reported, she freed herself. It was a great victory." "We continue to keep in touch," Marshal Cassarino still reports, "I accompanied her when she was given the Mobil Angel, a device with which she can now call for our intervention just by pressing a button, a tool that is proving to be really effective in the fight against gender violence. And remembering it today, March 8th, the day when women are celebrated, makes me even more proud. I will always be by the side of those who want to rebel."