Figure 1.--This beautiful little boy is Igor. He was born in Belarus while it was still part of the SOviet Union, an area badly affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disastert. Here we see him in Britain during 1995. The press caption read, "Igor--Child of Chernobyl: Igor Pavlovets is an eight year-old boy who was conceived in Belarus, one of the former Soviet Republics, two months after the world's worst nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear station on 26 April 1986. Born with only one arm and stunted legs, he was abanodoned by his parents and has spebt his life so far, in institutions. He was brought to Britain by an English charity -- The Chernobyl Children Life Line, to be fitted with artificial limbs, and has been fostered by the Bennett family from Surrey, who have formed a powerful bond with this bright, intelligent little boy." Here we see Igor with his foster mother Barbara Bennett.

As bad as conditions are for Russian and Belarus orphans, the situation for handicapped chilren is much worse. At the age of 5 years, the second group of orphans under the Russian Education Ministry's purview "the debily" is channeled to spets internaty (or "auxiliary internaty"), where they reside while taking a significantly abbreviated course of education totaling only 6 years, far short of a high school diploma. They are also offered vocational training, but their program and residence are generally segregated from the non-debil orphans. The Ministry of Labor and Social Development takes charge of orphans who are diagnosed by a board of state medical and educational reviewers as having heavy physical and mental disabilities at the age of 4 years. Officially labeled 'imbetsil' or 'idiot', they are committed to closed institutions which often resemble Dickensian asylums of the 19th century. There they remain until the age of 18 years if they survived. Those who survive to that age are transferred to adult psychoneurological internaty, or asylums, for the duration of their lives. Fragmentary statistics on the mortality rates in the institutions under the Ministry of Labor and Social Development indicate that these orphans are at significant risk of premature death. One leading child welfare advocate in Moscow told Human Rights Watch that estimates from government figures indicate the death rate in these internaty is twice the rate in the general population. He also knows one internat where he said that the death rate rose to as high as three and a half times the rate in the society outside its walls. The Chernobyl disaster created a new group of hndicapped children (1986).

Created: 7:20 AM 2/20/2019
Last updated: 7:20 AM 2/20/2019