Autistic Child Removed from Spanish Quarter Theater: Grandmother's Complaint

Naples – An episode that turns the spotlight back on the discrimination suffered by children with autism.

An autistic boy was removed from the auditorium of the Teatro Nuovo on Via Montecalvario, in the Spanish Quarter, during a show organized by his school.

The child's grandmother reported the incident, saying that the theater staff repeatedly asked her to leave the theater with her grandson because he was "disturbing the other children."

“My nephew was calm and interested in the show,” the woman explained. “Despite this, we were asked to sit in the waiting room. The reason? He was holding a phone without a ringer, which they said could distract the other children.”

The grandmother, outraged, turned to the deputy of the Green Left Alliance Francesco Emilio Borrelli, asking for justice and underlining how similar episodes are unfortunately frequent. “The school is taking action against the theater staff,” she added, “but it is necessary to make public what happened. There is too much discrimination against these children.”

The case brought to mind a similar episode that occurred just over a year ago in Afragola, where a young boy autistic 11-year-old had been removed from a gym event organized for the day against bullying. On that occasion too, the reason was that the child was "disturbing the other participants".

The incident sparked a debate on inclusion and the need for greater sensitivity to the needs of children with disabilities. The school attended by the child, through the principal and staff who witnessed the incident, assured that it is acting to ensure that similar situations do not happen again.

Meanwhile, the little boy's grandmother is calling loudly for change: "These children have the right to participate in social life like everyone else. We cannot continue to marginalize them."

A warning that, in light of what happened, seems more urgent than ever.

“We will get in touch with the theatre management and the school leaders to understand exactly what happened” - declares Borrelli - “Many proclamations, many posts of solidarity, many beautiful words spent in defense and support of special children who then in everyday life come to blows with what really happens.

If someone is bothered by the ways of an autistic child, we are very bothered by certain hypocrisies and those unseemly behaviors that undermine a person's dignity."