publicat de un an si jumatate, dar ca a fost lansat special pe 10 Mai
pentru ca este parte a unei "campanii lansate din adins inainte de
raportul UE privind Romania"
"Theodora Bertzi, head of Romanian Adoptions Office, said that the
MDRI report is part of a campaign launched on purpose before the EC
key report on Romania. "The report was embargoed until May 10
although it's been ready for a year and a half".
OK, sa presupunem ca T. Bertzi stie ce spune, atunci de ce nu a facut
nimic de un an si jumatate, daca stia despre acest raport? De ce nu s-
a interesat despre situatia copiilor institutionalizati, cu handicap
mintal si disabilitati de la Braila? Cine trebuie sa stie despre
aceste caz de abuz, nu Theodora Bertzi? Daca nu ea, de ce vorbeste
neintrebata?
Negarea negatiei duce la ...
FR
****************************************
American NGO says Romania has left behind its disabled children who
live in atrocious conditions
Bucharest authorities say data in report is out of date and the
abuses signaled were only isolated cases
published in issue 3676 page 3 at 2006-05-11
BUCHAREST - Mental Disability Rights International, an NGO based in
Washington, accuses Romania of segregating and abusing its infants
and children with disabilities in a report made public yesterday and
realized after 18 months of documentation in 2005. The report talks
about serious human rights violations against children with
disabilities who live in atrocious conditions. The report urges EU to
insist on immediate action by the Romanian government to end these
abuses. MDRI says that the disabled children were forgotten by the
Bucharest authorities while reforming the child protection system.
Romania is again haunted by the post-revolution footage of children
living in orphanages. Children tied to cribs and chairs, cold,
underfed and smeared with their own feces this is what the MDRI
investigators saw in two institutions in Romania, one in Timisoara,
west, and one in Braila, South East. "Thousands of children in
government-state institutions are still living in conditions that are
little changed from a decade ago", MDRI investigators say.
MDRI uses as an example a hospital in Timisoara where 65 abandoned
children, some of them not disabled, were housed in a two floors
building only attended by one nurse and three caregivers. The report
quotes one of the nurses as saying: "Children who do not receive
attention when they cry learn to stop crying", trying to explain how
they bear all the crying from 65 children. Many of the babies had no
identity papers and therefore "do not exist" according to the state,
said the nurse, remarking, "Many are Roma."
In an adult psychiatric hospital, in Braila, MDRI investigators found
some children wrapped head to toe in sheets used as full-body
restraints. When the staff agreed to remove the sheet on a 17-year-
old girl, the report states, "her skin came off with the sheet,
leaving a raw open wound beneath it." "It was the most horrible thing
I've ever seen in 13 years of doing this work," said Eric Rosenthal,
executive director of Mental Disability Rights International, a
Washington-based group, and the co-author of the report. "We found 46
children in Braila, one near death, that looked like they were from
Auschwitz, just skin and bones," Rosenthal said.
The MDRI report says that while the number of children in the
country's orphanages has dropped to about 30,000 from 170,000 in the
early 1990's, many children, particularly those with mental or
physical disabilities, have simply been moved into less visible,
though equally appalling, institutions, including adult psychiatric
hospitals.
The organization says that the child protection law 272 enforced in
2005 is discriminatory because it allows institutionalizing the
disabled abandoned babies under two while for the normal children the
foster care is the only option.
"MDRI investigators interviewed staff who revealed that many of the
children never leave their beds or cribs. Those few who were dressed
and sitting in chairs never go outside or have any form of activity.
We interviewed staff who were completely unaware of any of the common
behavioral treatments for self-abuse. They did not know that
stimulus, attention or activity would help alleviate the self-abuse",
the report reads.
"Romania was rushing to show that it had decreased its orphanage
population, but it left children with disabilities behind," Mr.
Rosenthal said in New York on Monday. He said there was no way to
estimate how many children were living in the conditions described in
the report. The report also says that normal or mildly disabled
children under two are sent to institutions for disabled trying to
hide the reality of child abandonment in Romania.
Official reactions
State secretary for Child Protection Department Bogdan Panait said
yesterday that the MDRI report is based on old information, from
2004. Panait said: "If this report had been made public in June last
year, it would have been something new for us. But now, the issues in
the report are solved and those children are not living in those
conditions again. I am very sorry that this report is made public
only few days before the EC report on Romania".
Theodora Bertzi, head of Romanian Adoptions Office, said that the
MDRI report is part of a campaign launched on purpose before the EC
key report on Romania. "The report was embargoed until May 10
although it's been ready for a year and a half".
But the MDRI said that Romanian authorities only took measures to fix
the living conditions for the children in the report after they
notified them. "The children were moved to two smaller institutions
for children. But the more disabled of them remained isolated,
without even a bathroom for toilet training. All of them, up to the
age of 17, use diapers", the report stated.
by Paula Dumitrescu
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