Vesna Mardžetko, a retired defectologist with 43 years of experience, spoke about the difficult fates of families with children with disabilities in Croatia, including the recent case of a father killing his autistic son and then himself.
Vesna Mardžetko, a defectologist and early childhood educator, spent 43 years working with children and young people with disabilities. Now retired, she still volunteers at the Center for Autism and helps the elderly. In an interview with DalmacijaDanas, she revealed harrowing details about the marginalization of mental illness in Croatia, the lack of systemic support, and the devastating family breakdowns.
"I'm retired now, but I worked with autistic children and young people, and I've truly seen it all, especially when it comes to the parents," began the 66-year-old Mardžetko. She worked at the Center for Autism, an institution supporting children with disabilities and special needs, the Association for Helping Adults with Mental Difficulties, the Down Syndrome Association, the ADHD Association, and she also helped children with special needs who were not covered by the system.
The most difficult case she recalls happened a few months ago. "A few months ago, a seemingly functional family was actually dysfunctional from the moment their autistic son was born," she recounted. The father took the young man to a seaside apartment, supposedly to get some fresh air and take walks along the shore. "But the father had planned it; he bought a gun and in the apartment killed his son and then himself," said Mardžetko.
According to her, the father was more involved with the child than the mother; they would walk around Zagreb and Sljeme. "Inside him, a different story was unfolding that he couldn't tell anyone else, and he planned it, probably for a long time, until he dared to raise his hand and kill both him and himself," she added. She attended the funeral; they were buried together. "A terrible tragedy," she concluded.
Mardžetko emphasizes that the stigma surrounding mental illness remains enormous. Parents often hide their children or make excuses for their behavior. "From excuses like 'he fell off the garage when he was little' to explain why he's different, to similar ones, all to justify an autism diagnosis that mom and dad are ashamed of," she noted.
As a young girl, she discovered a young man in her own building whom his parents never let outside. When she asked who he was, her parents told her: "None of your business, he's a sick boy." He was never seen on the street. Even today, grandparents approach her with questions about their grandchildren's behavior because the parents refuse to accept that something is wrong. "They react badly, with the final line being 'my child is healthy,'" she said.
Working with a child with disabilities, she explains, demands 110 percent of a person. "You have to watch whether they'll eat a crayon, whether they'll eat the wall, or bang their head fifteen times against the wall," she described. If it's that hard for educators, one has to wonder how it is for parents who don't let their child out of the house.
Mardžetko also witnessed physical abuse of typically developing children. One father, after dropping his child off at kindergarten at 7 a.m. and picking him up at 5 p.m., slapped his son in front of her. "He doesn't listen to me; you don't know what he's like," the father told her. When she told him that children should not be physically punished, he snapped back: "You can't do anything."
She reported the case to the Social Welfare Center, even though educators, as she says, are strictly forbidden from doing so. "It's not our job; it's none of our business," she explained. The next day, the mother, a highly educated woman, came and described the father's terrorism, including intellectual and physical abuse. Eventually, the neighbors reacted, and the family entered the social welfare system.
Another case of neglect occurred when a father brought his sick child with a high fever and diarrhea to kindergarten. "If one child is sick, the other 20 will get sick because it's a virus," she said. The doctor asked her: "Are you going to report this further?" Mardžetko replied: "The head nurse will send him back to you, so you'll have to do something." Still, on the third day, the father brought a note saying the child was healthy, even though the mother was at home.
Many children with disabilities end up in institutions because their parents cannot or will not accept them. "It often happens that the mother comes monthly, then every three months, then for Christmas and Easter, and then she stops coming," she recounted. "And then they become our children." Very young people die, but not from autism, but from the narcotics they are given.
She also recalled the case of a woman who became pregnant with twins at the age of thirty. One child is deaf, the other has severe psychotic episodes. While she was at work and the children were at Suvag and Mali Dom, the father packed his bags and left. "He changed his phone number and hasn't been heard from to this day," she said.
There is also a boy whom the neighbors are trying to evict from the apartment because he screams. "They are destroying that woman, and who's to say she won't one day do what that father did?" Mardžetko warned. "But someone intervened, and the child will be in residential care starting in September." Neighbors, she adds, have typically developing children, and anything different shouldn't even exist.
"Many, if not all, mental health conditions in Croatia are marginalized," concluded Mardžetko. "We have to fight for everything. There is no adequate care; treatment is done in very strange ways. Mostly it's strong medications, so they just sleep and eat; there's no occupational therapy, no connection with a doctor or psychiatrist."
She also points out that children in institutions often lack even basic clothing. "I sew with my sewing machine, I go to Caritas, I look for clothes for the children because parents forget about their children who are growing and need something to wear," she said. "They don't have the courage to look at that child whose parents they are."
