Authorities deny international report on mistreated disabled children

From the Bucharest Daily News................Authorities deny abuses!!!!!!!!!!

Authorities deny international report on mistreated disabled children
Oana Dan

A report showing Romania still warehouses mentally ill and handicapped children in adult mental institutions in filth and degradation stirred controversy and prompted authorities to deny the information. Responding to the advocacy group's report, a government official, Bogdan Panait, said progress has been made in children's rights, "but there are still many things left to be done."

Panait, who is the state secretary of the Child Protection Agency, also said yesterday that the report is not entirely true, as the conditions have improved significantly since last year. He explained that at present, there are no children living like the ones described in the report.

He added that children mentioned in the document were moved to decent care centers with much better conditions, where they are properly fed and cared for by social and maternal assistants.

The report, released yesterday by the Mental Disability Rights International, described children who were tied or shackled in chairs, or who lay in fetid beds all day, some bound tightly with sheets. Romania's poor treatment of the mentally ill, especially children, became known after dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown and executed in 1989. While conditions are vastly improved, the EU has pressed for greater change.

Many of the children incessantly hurt themselves: A boy repeatedly poked his fingers into his eyes; children bit their arms or hands, leaving bloody sores, the report says.

Laurie Ahern, the report's co-author, spoke with AP about the bizarre feeling she had as she entered a ward with 60 babies.

"There was no sound," she said. "There was no cooing; there was no baby crying. It was complete silence, and it was very eerie and strange. Babies should be crying, cooing and making sounds."

She said it was obvious that time spent in the ward has changed the infants. The youngest would respond slightly to a person's approach. A two-year-old, after two years in the crib with almost no human contact, neither walked nor crawled. They lay in their cribs.

More shocking still were the older children, she said. "They were rocking back and forth, they were not responding to your look or touch, they were chewing on their hands - you could see the disability."

The report said Romania is far from reaching the goal of having most mentally ill people living within communities rather than in institutions and with children in foster care or other family-style relationships.

In recent years, the government has built almost 200 small institutions for children. While that has saved the lives of many children, it fails to remove them from the institutional life, the report said.

While Romania's history of rights abuses involving institutionalized children makes its case more compelling, it is not unique. Ahern's group alone has done similar reports in recent years on facilities in Turkey, Peru, the Serbian province of Kosovo, Mexico, Russia, Hungary and Uruguay.

A 2005 law aims to end the institutionalization of children, but many end up in institutions because of moderate disabilities and a lack of programs to treat them elsewhere. The report spoke of some children who appeared to have been institutionalized only because they were unwanted but were disabled because of their treatment.

Authorities and family members in Braila, where investigators found some of the worst conditions, told the writers of the report that some of the problems were caused by a lack of people willing to care for disabled children.

Authorities: the conditions have improved

Panait said the government took emergency measures to improve conditions after learning about problems in Braila early last year. "In three to four months, the lives and the evolution of these children have improved," Panait said, adding the government is allocating money for family-style homes with specialized staffs and will try to place children with families. "By the end of the year, the problem will be resolved," he said. He explained the director of the hospital in Braila was not sanctioned because it is not his responsibility to issue sanctions. Panait added that the report does not worry him at all at this time and pointed out that the European officials cannot take everything written in it as truth, as they all know about the progress made in the child protection system.

The European Commission, the EU's executive body, is to issue a report on Romania's prospects next week, and the authors of this report are urging the EU to delay the country's accession if measures are not taken against the situation of disabled children.

Panait also explained that the care centers in the country should hire more maternal assistants.

"Children are entrusted to maternal assistants whenever this is possible," he said, adding that most of the shelters in Romania have very good conditions and well-trained experts to take care of the disabled children.

In the country there are currently 4,000 disabled children, but no significant programs to reintegrate them into society.

Panait explained that the most imperative measures to be taken now are those focusing on changing the mentality of the people towards these children.

He also said that the project to entrust children in the care of maternal assistants is working well, adding that the figures speak for themselves.

"At the beginning of last year there were about 32,000 children in shelters and by the end of the year the number had dropped to 29,000."

He explained that the child protection legislation also has changed and pointed out that the important thing authorities have to do is to learn the new laws and abide by them.

"Cooperation among local authorities involved in the child protection field is highly significant," he said, stressing that the shortcoming in the system is the poor cooperation among local authorities. He added he has urged everyone involved in the field that it is time to start acting professionally.

Analysts: report won't impact EU accession

Senior editor at daily newspaper Gandul, Bogdan Chireac, said that both the European Commission and the European Parliament have shown in their recent reports that the situation of children has improved. "I doubt if things are as the New York Times reports," he said, explaining that there is no connection between the date when the article appeared and the country report of the EC due next week. "I don't think the purpose of the article is to damage Romania's image," Chireac added.

Editor at Adevarul daily, Eugen Chelemen, stressed that the solution to the issue in Romania would be to entrust them to the care of maternal assistants.

"Children should not be kept in these institutions, a communist heritage," he also said, explaining that keeping them in shelters hinders the natural development of their personalities.

He also said that it is not relevant to associate this report with the upcoming one from the European Commission, pointing out that they are distinct documents.

An AP transcript was also used for this report.