Children's Rights


International Children's Day - October 20


Russian Federation: Promote the Rights of Children with Mental Disabilities

The sign on the door said: "Beware! Keep out!" This was the corridor where children are kept permanently in bed. There were 27 beds in six tight rows in a ward that was clean and bright. A television was switched on over the bed of an 18-year old woman who could speak with an Amnesty International delegate visiting the internat (orphanage) and was excited about the visit. She was the oldest.

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A child in an internat in the Russian Federation. (© Valery Shchekoldin)

The others were boys and girls from the age of four who were unable to speak. The room was silent. Three of the children had Down's Syndrome and the delegate was told the others were suffering from "imbecility" and "idiocy". As the children had been in bed all their lives, their arms and legs were wasted and their skin covered in sores. One nine-year-old boy lay curled up, the size of a fouryear- old.

Around 29,000 children live in 155 state orphanages in the Russian Federation and an additional 19,400 children live in children's homes. Many of these children were born with mental disabilities and were taken away from their parents. Because the future of children with mental disabilities is considered hopeless in the Russian Federation, parents are recommended to sign a legal document renouncing their parental rights. In some cases, parents are not even shown their baby. Children go on to live in state institutions, in close confinement with little or no sensory stimulation. Diagnosed as "uneducable," no effort is made to help children with mental disabilities become self-sufficient or fulfill their potential.

Amnesty International is concerned that the procedures used for institutionalizing these children breach many international standards, including the right to have confinement decided by a court and the right to the periodic review of their treatment. Further, children with mental disabilities in the Russian Federation are being denied their right to an education, their right to a family life and their right to be free of neglect and negligent treatment while living in institutional conditions that do not respect their inherent dignity