Abuse committed in the Próvolo de La Plata: "I have knotted a sheet so that they do not violate me"

Daniel Sgardelis is 44 years old, he is deaf and one of the victims of the Próvolo Institute of La Plata, where an investigation is opened into allegations of badual abuse similar to those occurring at Luján headquarters. from Cuyo.

With the help of an interpreter of signs, Sgardelis granted him an interview. The nation in which he recalled that "every Saturday the priests forced them to have bad"And he added that" they hit them in the hands with sticks "and that he had to do it"attach a sheet to your waist so as not to violate it"

The Próvolo is a story of abuse against hearing-impaired children that began in Verona, Italy, where the head office is located. Between 1950 and 1984, more than 25 priests were accused of abusing and badually torturing deaf children. When the accusations denounced by these attacks gained notoriety, the Church moved to one of the main defendants, Nicola Corradi (with the Mendoza residential prison), in the direction of Argentina.

Corradi arrived in the country on January 31, 1970. He was appointed head of the Próvolo Institute in La Plata, Buenos Aires, where cases of abuse, such as Sgardel, were also reported. In 1997, the Church transferred it again this time to the Próvolo Institute of Luján de Cuyo. It is presumed that the priest continued to abuse until 2014. In November 2016, he was arrested in our province and a few months later he was placed under house arrest because of his advanced age and his problems. health.

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"The tortures in La Plata were even worse than in Mendoza, when I started to listen to the victims, I wondered what they wanted, what they were looking for with all this , what they said was unreal, then I heard the second, the third and all said the same thing, "said Cecilia Corfield, prosecutor in charge of the UFI No. 15 La Plata, which investigates cases related to the seat of this city.

In the Plateau case, there are three accused: Nicola Corradi and José Brítez, who are under pre-trial detention; and José Eliseo Primati, who went to Italy and considered a request for extradition of Argentine justice.

Sgardelis says that Corradi was not the only one to have been abused by him and his companions. "There were other priests and even a deaf boy who had been raised in the Próvolo," he recalls.

He added that he was encouraged to denounce the end of the notoriety of what had happened in Próvolo de Luján, late 2016. Previously, no one believed him and had even tried to commit suicide several times . "I'm excited that everything is changing, but now, the important thing is to continue the fight, that's the truth, my life is ruined, but I'm alive, which shows that we must continue to fight for the abuse to cease in the future, "concluded Sgardelis.