Yesterday afternoon Italian PM Giuseppe Conte announced on his official Twitter account that kidnapped aid worker Silvia Romano had been released.
Romano, a volunteer, was abducted by unknown gunmen from Chakama, Kenya, on November 20, 2018. She was 23 years old at the time of the abduction and was working for a non-governmental organisation.
In December 2018, police announced she was still alive, but there were long periods of silence as well regarding her conditions, with reports stating she was kept prisoner in Somalia or she had been sold to terrorists by the men who had abducted her.
Romano arrived today at Rome's Ciampino airport, where she was met by her family and the authorities. There was a heartbreaking moment when she hugged her mum, Francesca Fumagalli: today it is Mother's Day in Italy and you could just imagine the heart of this mother bursting with joy as she hugged her daughter after one year and a half.
Yet, despite this moment of tenderness after two months of Coronavirus lockdown and still with nightmarish visions in our eyes - from the horrors of overcrowded hospitals and intensive care units to the coffins lined up waiting to be buried - some comments on social media focused not on the happiness, on the good news of seeing this young woman back home, cheerfully smiling, but on the clothes - a green jilbab - Romano was wearing. Some pointed at "African dress", "traditional African dress" and "Islamic garb" that hinted at her conversion.
I didn't know that you were expected to get off a plane bringing you back home after a kidnapping that lasted almost two years in a designer outfit and matching bag, possibly with stiletto shoes on your feet (next time, apart from the intelligence, we should maybe involve a major fashion designer to get some advice).
These comments made you think about what Michelle Obama stated in the recently released Netflix documentary "Becoming", named after her eponymous memoir.
In the documentary, the former first lady explains how her role prompted her to understand pretty soon that what you wear defines you: "Fashion for a woman predominates how people view you. That's not fair, that's not right but it's true... I would make some impassioned speech and they would say 'she's wearing an interesting designer dress'."
Michelle Obama's statement regards more the fact that, realising that people would comment on her attire, she had to learn how to use fashion in her favour. Yet that sentence - fashion for a woman predominates how people view you - is striking and could be used also to comment on the most narrow minded comments just posted on social media about Silvia Romano. When will we ever realise that the clothes don't make the man... or the woman?
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