A girl about 8 years old from Germany, was locked in her house alone for seven years by her mother, grandparents. She was finally released from home at the end of last September and is now (Tuesday) in foster care.
Welfare officials said she had difficulty with everyday tasks such as climbing stairs. German reports say she never saw a forest or a field.
Her mother lied to authorities when she said she moved to Italy when her daughter was born. At the time, authorities believe, she was raised indoors in a small town of 24,000 people, had no contact with another person, never went to school and never spent time outside. They say there is no evidence she was physically abused or malnourished.
The head of the local child welfare department said she can read and do math, but struggles with other daily tasks.
She is now under the supervision of child psychologists. An expert from the National Association for the Protection of Children told the German media: “The world is now upside down for the girl. It will feel like being on another planet.”
Now the prosecutors are trying to determine what happened – and how. According to them, the mother and grandparents remained silent about the case and still have not been able to establish a motive.
The common assumption is that the mother may have tried to distance the child from her father, from whom she separated shortly before the child was born. She reportedly forbade him to have contact with the child and when he went to the family courts, they agreed to joint custody in 2016.
Until then, the German authorities – and the father – believed that the mother had left the country with her daughter.
In 2015 she officially informed them that she had moved to Italy. Prosecutors now believe that, in fact, she never left and they lived with the girl’s grandparents, who, it seems, helped her keep up the pretense.
It turned out that the authorities had received two reports about the girl in recent years, but according to them, when they investigated, there was no solid evidence that a girl was being held at the property.
In June of this year, a couple reported seeing the little girl, prompting an investigation that determined she and her mother had never lived in Italy, leading to their discovery at the grandparents’ home.
The grandfather, grandmother and mother are being investigated on suspicion of unlawful imprisonment and abuse. Prosecutors claim that the mother could face up to 10 years in prison, but so far no charges have been filed.
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