”Bulgaria’s abandoned children” by Ivan Fišer How long will the Bulgarian government remain indifferent in the face of human suffering? On 13 September 2007, BBC 4 television viewers in the United Kingdom had an opportunity to watch ”Bulgaria’s abandoned children”, a documentary film directed by Kate Blewett. I anticipated this broadcast with some trepidation. Between 2001 and 2005, working for Amnesty International and closely collaborating with the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, I visited over 35 social care homes for children and adults in Bulgaria, some of them several times. It seems to me that I still remember these visits - each and every one - to the smallest detail, while most other memories slowly fade away. In that period I also had many opportunities to speak about my findings to the highest Bulgarian officials and to urge them to implement much needed measures. Mostly, I was disappointed by their reactions and their apparent indifference to the reality my Bulgarian colleagues and I were documenting in our reports. A friend who assisted the BBC film-makers told me that it concerned the home for children with mental disabilities in Mogilino, an institution I had visited in January 2002. I was apprehensive about watching the film because I feared that little had been done to improve the situation. At the same time I desperately hoped to see any sign of the much needed improvements. What I saw on 13 September haunts me like a nightmare. To viewers in Bulgaria who will hopefully have a chance to see this documentary sometime in November, I would like to highly recommend it. A well-made documentary can be so much more powerful than any written account of the same situation or event. Even the best researched human rights reports seem to sanitize reality with numerous (and indispensable) references to international and domestic law - broad, legal standards to protect human rights that often ring hollow in situations of gross human rights violations. Filming intermittently in Mogilino over a period of nine months, Kate Blewett presented its harsh reality with clinical precision. The message - an appeal for recognition and fulfilment of every child’s basic needs, as a fundamental right of every human to be treated with dignity - is delivered with brutal force, unavoidable in the dire situation of this institution. Her film bears witness to the impregnable isolation from the rest of society of the Mogilino children. Without therapies and access to education to fully develop their potentials, they are condemned to lives void of any meaning. Many of the children live in a world of total silence, since no one has ever talked to them, believing them incapable of learning. They can communicate neither with each other nor with any of the carers. Noth1 OBEKTIV
ing in their lives ever changes - no matter what day of the week, month or season. Except for children with more complex health conditions and needs for treatment, who are left to suffer a slow death. Their pain, witnessed at close quarters, is particularly difficult to watch. The film director rightly has little consideration for the comfort of the viewers and these scenes seem interminable. On the other hand, can anything, even the most poignant images, fully convey the suffering these children are subjected to through neglect and deprivation of adequate medical treatment? What the BBC cameras recorded in Mogilino in 2007 is hardly any different to what my Bulgarian colleagues and I documented in 2002 and on subsequent visits. We noted, among other things, that the living conditions were inadequate, dormitories over-crowded, inappropriately decorated, and the children housed according to their physical and not intellectual abilities. We also described the exclusion of the children from the community as unacceptable; expressed concern that Mogilino children were deprived of adequate medical care1; that their rehabilitation and therapy needs had been inappropriately assessed and not regularly and effectively reviewed; and that it was improper to prescribe phenobarbitone for children simply because it was free or very cheap2. The situation of 35 children who spent their entire lives in bed was of particular concern. In our report we noted: ”The visit to the house which contained the most disabled children was distressing. There were, for example, young children with cerebral palsy, leaving some spastic in all four limbs, one blind and deaf child, and a little one with Down’s syndrome who was extremely hypotonic (floppy) with it. All these children were lying horizontally in bed and spent their days perceiving their environment from that position. It was clear that the staff had no idea how to interact with these very impaired children beyond feeding and cleaning them”. Attention was also drawn to a high mortality rate, with six deaths in the year preceding our visit. ”The stated causes of death included disorders which are common for children with severe developmental disabilities and where there are poor resources. A nineyear-old boy died on 6 November 2001 of pneumonia. He was suffering from cerebral palsy which im1 The general practitioner was based 17km away, while the paediatrician and psychiatrist were in the hospital 30km away, and the children had to be taken to them. 2 Paediatric psychiatrist who accompanied me on the visit to Mogilino was concerned that psychotropic medications were openly used to subdue behaviours which may well not have a psychotic basis, but be due to distress and/or anger arising from the environment. Phenobarbitone is a very old-fashioned drug used in the past for epilepsy. It is very sedating and usually extremely depressive in its effect.
peded his swallowing. Children in this condition need to be fed in an upright position. Otherwise food can enter the windpipe and cause pneumonia. When questioned the staff responded that the children were fed only with bottles and that they would be in a reclining position with pillows to prop up their heads”3. These grave concerns were communicated and discussed in Sofia in October 2002, when Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, presented the report containing the above citations4. The above citations to the Bulgarian authorities. Those who had never visited similar institutions, also had an opportunity to see some of the children of Mogilino in a 20-minute film produced to accompany that report. Scenes filmed in July 2002 closely resemble those filmed by the BBC in 2007. Why labour the point that little has changed in Mogilino? Why bring up details of a report written five years ago so pedantically? There can be no misunderstandings. The record is straight: for the past five years, the Bulgarian authorities have known about the situation in Mogilino. They had repeatedly been urged by international and regional organizations, foreign governments and numerous civil society organizations to implement recommended measures. Even some of the positive steps made by the authorities in response to these appeals now seem to have been only superficially implemented, if at all. Among some other measures, an amendment to the Law on Child Protection was adopted in April 2003. It required the placement of children in specialized institutions like Mogilino to be decided by the courts, once all other possibilities for keeping them at home or in other non-institutional care arrangements had been exhausted. This was considered an important step in the right direction. Yet, watching Bulagria’s abandoned children could dispel some illusions one may have had regarding the implementation of these regulations. A teenage girl named in the film as Didi, had been abandoned by her mother and placed in Mogilino not long before the filming began in 2006. Even to a viewer who has no experience with children with special needs it would appear clear that Didi, a highly communicative and independent girl whose education had abruptly come to an end, should never have been brought to Mogilino. This is not to say that this institution is fit for any other child. The contrast between Didi and other girls in her dormitory was stark. Her placement in Mogilino illustrates a child protection measure that is not only arbitrary and inappropriate but profoundly damaging. In fact, This feeding method was confirmed by an Amnesty International colleague who visited Mogilino in July 2002 and observed that the most severely disabled children were all fed in a reclining position. 4 See Amnesty International report Bulgaria: Far from the eyes of society - Systematic discrimination against people with mental disabilities, AI Index: EUR 15/005/2002, 10 October 2002 3
the film disturbingly documents deterioration of Didi’s mental health as a result of her life in Mogilino’s institutional environment. Is it possible that a court actually reviewed Didi’s needs for personal development, education and general well-being? Did a court examine the manner in which child protection authorities considered alternative forms of care when her mother requested her placement in an institution? How did the court establish that Mogilino, as an institution, would be appropriate to fulfil Didi’s needs? Can any court have produced such a travesty of justice? This is but one of many serious questions for the Bulgarian authorities to consider as they study the information presented in this film. Or will they fail to consider it as they failed to investigate information about abusive acts and practices in Mogilino presented in the 2002 report? Lastly a few words about the official reaction to the BBC film. The statements posted on the BBC website5 and some statements noted by the Bulgarian media seemed to me predictable and transparently devoid of any sense of responsibility. The interview given on 19 September by Mrs. Emilia Maslarova to6 Inforadio reveals a profound lack of understanding of social, psychological and medical needs of children with developmental disabilities “high time to understand that for some people, be they adults or children with mental disabilities, cannot learn to speak, or to read. They simply have no abilities...”. Some of her remarks, for example ”you can understand that the family would not want such a person at home”, must have been distressing to people with disabilities and their families. This should be clearly unacceptable for an official in her position in any modern democratic state. Remarks such as ”I would be very happy, if you, Bulgarian journalists, would visit similar institutions (if you are allowed at all) abroad and to dig out what had been uncovered by the BBC. It was absolutely incorrect of the BBC to do this and I would add that it was done with bad intentions to misrepresent Bulgaria” were tragically risible and reminiscent of the way government and party officials, replaced 18 years ago, reacted to ‘foreign attempts to defame Bulgaria’. After Bulgaria’s abandoned children has been shown on Bulgarian television, I challenge Madam Minister to repeat these observations in front of the same television audience. I also challenge Bulgarian authorities to prove me wrong that in five years’ time, in 2012, no child in Bulgaria will be abandoned to the fate of children of Mogilino. A challenge I would dearly love to lose. Meanwhile I pray for all those nameless children similarly abandoned in institutions like Mogilino who will not live to see that day. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/ bulgarias-children.shtml 6 See http://www.inforadio.bg/theme.php 5
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