RIJEKA, CROATIA – The fact that homophobia, ignorance and primitivism have no boundaries, as well as that people`s awareness on homosexuality has not significantly changed, is witnessed by the story a young woman from Rijeka told the Jutarnji list daily.

Parents sent Rijeka-born Ana Dragicevic (21) to a mental institution in Lopac when she was 16, stating heroin addiction as the reason. Because she spent five years in hospital, she did not gradate and still has nightmares as a consequence.

The young girl testified of terror we cannot even imagine, apart from imagining concentration camps of World War II. The horror story began after she confessed she was gay to her parents.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Ana was admitted by Mirjana Vulin who was headmistress at the time. Even though Ana was never an addict, she was forced to falsely testify, but her five-year hospital treatment lasted longer than the usual addiction treatment (one to two years).

Straight jacket adolescence

The greatest nonsense is that Vulin treated the girl for homosexuality, and this person was the headmistress of the hospital for 15 years. When asked: “Whom would you chose for a partner, a girl or a boy?”, she had to reply a boy so that her treatment would record progress.

Ana was bound, she put on straight jackets, she was given injections, pills. The girl was in the same ward as schizophrenic patients, whom she was afraid due to their aggression.

- They gave me pills that my pupils would turn upwards. When I saw what it looked like on a schizophrenic, I was so terrified that I lost it – Ana said.

Release form as a ticket to another life

After the State Attorney`s Office heard about Ana`s case, they requested the director`s dismissal, while Radmir Rakun was appointed headmaster. On his first day at the post, he wrote Ana`s release form, Vulin was dismissed as requested by Croatian Health Minister Darko Milinovic.

Even though she requested education at the hospital, this was not facilitated. Upon being released, Ana decided to get education as a hairdresser, in order to support herself. Ana is renting out an apartment and is being supported by relatives who are not familiar with what she has gone through.