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Bulgaria shuts scandal-hit homes for disabled children

The homes, for years, had been plagued by scandals of negligence and hundreds of abuse cases resulting in deaths.

Sofia: Bulgaria said on Thursday it had shut all of its communist-era institutions for disabled children, which for years had been plagued by scandals of negligence and abuse cases resulting in deaths.

The closure of the 25 homes marks the end of painful reforms launched in 2010, when the scandal first broke.

Only a handful of children had remained in the institutions by the end of last year.

"This is the end of a step-by-step process of moving the children from the former homes into smaller community-based centres," Georgy Terziyski of the national agency for social assistance said.

Bulgarian rights groups cautiously welcomed the move, but said much remained to be done to ensure children's welfare.

During communism, Bulgarian authorities had encouraged the abandonment of children with mental and physical disabilities to state care in huge homes that were deliberately located in some of Bulgaria's most remote regions.

The case unravelled six years ago, when an investigation by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) rights group revealed that hundreds of children had died from malnutrition and abuse in the state-run homes over the previous decade.

Most of the deaths were never reported to police or authorities, the report found. Moreover, three-quarter of the 238 deaths could have been prevented, according to the BHC.

Following the shock revelations, the Bulgarian government launched a sweeping overhaul of its social care system.

Agency figures showed that the number of children placed in the old homes went down to just seven at the end of 2015 from 1,185 in 2012.

Children in state care were instead accommodated in 154 smaller community centres that have the capacity to host 2,099 children and offer substantially better suited care, according to the government agency.

'Just smaller institutions'

Speaking to AFP on Thursday, BHC chairman Krasimir Kanev said the closures marked "some progress".

He criticised the fact that the majority of children were transferred into centres branded "family-like" by authorities that were initially supposed to host between six and eight children, but finally ended up with 14.

"These alternative centres, despite offering somewhat better conditions, are again institutions. They are not really family-like. There are no families with 14 members. So in practice they are just smaller institutions," Kanev said.

He added that BHC visits to the new centres showed that "the conditions for rehabilitation and social integration are also not very good".

"There is much more to be desired about the qualifications of the people who care for the children. Many of them come from the former institutions. Others were hired without proper training," Kanev said.

Experts say that disabilities are still stigmatised in Bulgaria, making it hard for the children to find foster or adoptive families.

( Source : AFP )
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