La Romania calpesta i diritti di bambini disabili

Secondo un rapporto del Mental Disability Rights International la situazione degli orfanotrofi in Romania non è cambiata negli ultimi 15 anni, da quando immagini raccapriccianti fecero il giro del mondo dopo la morte di Ceausescu (Press Release; Full Report). Bambini con disabilità mentali e fisiche abbandonati e maltrattati; ridotti a pelle e ossa e lasciati piangere per imparare a non usare questo mezzo per ottenere attenzione. Molti di loro non hanno nemmeno i documenti di identità; ufficialmente non esistono.
Secondo quanto riportato dal New York Times (Romania’s Orphans Face Widespread Abuse, Group Says, 10 maggio 2006):

In an adult psychiatric hospital, 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.

La Romania si difende:

Simona Pella, an official at Romania’s National Authority for the Protection of Children’s Rights, said she had not yet seen the report, but disputed its findings.
“We are talking about a report made by a nongovernmental organization, and it’s their opinion,” Ms. Pella said by telephone from Bucharest. “They are not talking about facts in all of Romania, just about some cases in two counties.”

(photo by MDRI)