Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: This report documents how, from the
moment the state assumes their care,
orphans in Russia---of whom 95 percent
still have a living parent---are
exposed to shocking levels of cruelty
and neglect. The full text is available on HRW website at
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports98/russia2/
This report documents how, from the moment the state assumes their
care, orphans in Russia---of whom 95 percent still have a living
parent---are exposed to shocking levels of cruelty and neglect.
Infants classified as disabled are segregated into "lying-down"
rooms, where they are changed and fed but are bereft of stimulation
and essential medical care. Those who are officially diagnosed as
"imbetsil" or "idiot" at age four are condemned to life in little
more than a warehouse, where they may be restrained in cloth sacks,
tethered by a limb to furniture, denied stimulation, training, and
education. Some lie half-naked in their own filth, and are neglected,
sometimes to the point of death. The "normal" children---those deemed
to be educable"---are
subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by institution
staff. They may be beaten, locked in freezing rooms for days at a
time, abused physically, denied adequate education and training. It
is deplorable that the very state that is charged with the care and
nurture of more than 600,000 children "without parental care,"
condemns untold numbers to an archipelago of grim institutions.
Abandoned children suffer a lifelong stigma that ultimately robs them
of fundamental economic, social, civil and political rights
guaranteed by international treaties. Human Rights Watch calls on the
Russian Federation, which has long prided itself on the education of
its children, to stop all medical personnel from pressing parents to
institutionalize newborns with various disabilities, and reallocate
resources spent on institutions to develop humane, non-discriminatory
alternatives.