In 2020 her husband tried to climb a gutter to enter his mother’s house where Caterina Stellato had taken refuge and beat her, perhaps kill her, after years of mistreatment and persecution. The The case became known because that climb was filmed in a video broadcast by Who Has Seen It. Caterina found the strength to denounce him and for years he lived “in secret” with his three children in Borgo San Lorenzo (Florence)now deciding to come out into the open by running on a civic list as municipal councilor in the town that welcomed her.
«I want my story to help other women find the courage to report. To escape from men who, when things go well, reduce us to survivors »the words of Caterina Stellato, 43 years old, to La Nazione which today tells her story. «The anxiety and fears are there, it’s undeniable – she adds, explaining her choice – But I want to react. I want to stop living in fear. I don’t want to hide anymore, he’s the one who has to hide.” Antimo Carrera, sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in prison by the court of Naples for mistreatment of Caterina and who is still in prison.
«I don’t move from Mugello anymore. I want to live there without the obsession that my ex-husband will come looking for me – she continues -. Knowing him, when he gets out of prison, he will do anything to find me. Detention certainly won’t have changed him. And this is precisely why I don’t want to hide. Living hidden means living in fear. I have lived too many years with shivers on my skin and with sighs over nothing.”
On how she arrived in Mugello she explains that «Who saw it? she took care of my case »: offers arrived from all over Italy to help me and my children. Among the many, one that came from Borgo San Lorenzo struck me. Fulvia and Marcello offered me a job in a healthcare facility. I still remember the day they came to pick me up at the station, it was April 29, 2021, they welcomed me with a pair of keys. `These are from your new home´. It was the best day of my life. Borgo San Lorenzo gave me an opportunity for rebirth. I am grateful to this country and if I can do something I will make myself available with great humility.”
As for what politics can do for women victims of violence, he declares: «I believe that unfortunately the ban on approaching women is of little use. My husband had it but he hacked it multiple times. He should be arrested immediately. And then, I insist, it is necessary for women to report and have the courage to do so. This is the first step to salvation.”
THEthe story of his 25 years of unhappiness cbegins with that twenty-year-old boy she met when she was 15: a crush that became a relationship and then prison; jealousy, the first slap and after that it gets worse. Beatings, kicks, hair torn out in locks, unrepeatable insults. It was like this in their years as a couple, and it was like this afterwards too, with the children watching, crying and begging: «Enough, dad, please stop. Please stop.” On November 21st Caterina goes out and runs away, goes to a family home, reports it and then returns to get the children. From there the journey to Mugello.
