[ VO ] Video showing a woman in Moscow beating her
10-year-old stepson with a bottle. “There have been many
years of torture in this family”, says Anna, the
eldest adopted child, who recorded the disturbing scene
[ VO ] Family law has been the subject of much debate in
Russia. Many fear that new legislation will allow the
indiscriminate separation of children and parents. Child
protection officers maintain that stern measures are needed.
[ VO ] But not even the law can guarantee that a child, removed
from an abusive home, is always safe in a surrogate family
[ Anna ] I wasn't at home
FAMILY MATTERS
[ Anna ] This is her beating Sveta
[ GEO ] LYUBERTSY, MOSCOW REGION
[ VO ] The law requires child protection services to
monitor foster families and write a report twice a year.
[ Anna Koroleva ] There were no inspections
[ Anna ] Yes, they did come, three at a time
[ Anna ] They stayed in the corridor
[ Anna ] I remember the leader, Tatyana Viktorovna
[ Anna ] Two other women went out
[ Anna ] She said, 'Wait, I'll be out in a sec'
[ Anna ] She received some lovely gifts, and that was it
[ Anna ] There was money, perfume and make-up
[ VO ] Russian law provides for foster parents to
receive money from the state to pay for childcare.
Irina received about 130 thousand roubles every month for the children in her
care. These are the payments to which Moscow’s foster parents were entitled in 2019.
[ Anna ] She spent enormous sums of money. Really huge
[ Anna ] She played a game on a social network
[ Anna ] That was it: a social network game, 'Bottle'. She played…
betting an insane amount of money on the game, like,
5,000 or 10,000 roubles for her was normal
[ Anna ] It started with champagne
[ Anna ] Then cognac, then whiskey,
then moonshine
[ Anna ] I mean, she woke up, had some drinks and continued playing the game
[ Anna ] Went to bed again, got up and drank again
[ Anna ] If she had any business to attend to, she slept herself sober,
ran a few errands, came home and started over
[ Anna ] She never cooked dinner for the children
[ Anna ] It was all up to me…
[ VO ] When Irina Goncharova officially adopted the children, her ex-husband
was in prison. His release made life a living hell for the family
Talk-show Well, anything could happen [ Girl ] He lurks by the doorway
[ Man ] You'll always be afraid [ Girl ] See?
[ Anna ] There were times when it was so frightening…
[ Anna ] My husband and I took our daughter and left
[ Anna ] She came, took my daughter away and refused to let her go for a week
[ Anna ] I went to the police to resolve it, but they said,
[ Anna ] 'Well, she's the grandmother'
[ Anna ] A kid simply can't physically stay in such an apartment,
there's always smoking, drinking and child abuse
[ Anna ] To get some proof of that we went to -
how should I put it? - that 'lovely' woman
and stayed at her place for two months, filming everything that went on in the flat
[ Anna ] It was scary, of course
[ VO ] But not even such clear evidence caught on video
was considered enough to begin criminal proceedings
[ Anna ] I've shown this to everyone
[ Anna ] The Simonov Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office refused to open a criminal case
[ Anna ] The Ministry of Internal Affairs' main office:
they write of an absence of an act and the composition of a crime
[ Anna ] I didn't know what to do, who to turn to
[ VO ] Social services only launched an investigation
after Anna uploaded the video to a major website along
with her story about the family and a plea for the
children to be saved. Then journalists took an interest.
[ Anna ] I happened to get on that talk show
[ Anna ] And thanks to the broadcast,
[ Anna ] Irina has been able to face the music and really somehow be brought to justice
[ VO ] The three remaining children confirmed they
too had been abused by the foster parents. Criminal
charges of torture were brought against Irina and
Andrey, and the children were sent for rehabilitation.
[ Anna ] Andrey keeps calling me from the detention centre
[ Anna ] He asks me to withdraw the claim, naturally
Strangely enough, he only cares about himself, not her
[ Anna ] I mean, he only asks for himself, like,
[ Anna ] 'So that I'm not alleged to have done anything,
please withdraw the claim or I'll kill you all'
[ Anna ] Of course, I'm scared. First of all, he knows some people,
who might really track me down on the street and then where would you find me?
[ Anna ] These people have been like this for as long as I can remember
[ Anna ] Aggressive. But the kids kept silent
[ Anna ] They love Irina Nikolaevna, because they view her as their mother
[ Anna ] I mean, I loved her up to the end, too
[ VO ] Since 2014 it has easier for the government to hold foster parents to account for
their work with children Meanwhile even more
kids were being taken from their own families.
[ Boris Altshuler, Human Rights Activist ] The Russian Family Code
was introduced in 1996
[ Boris ] That's 23 years ago, right?
[ Boris ] The Russian code has 51 articles on apportioning child custody
[ Boris ] Nine articles on deprivation of parental
rights – restriction, termination – nine
[ Boris ] And 41 articles – a whole section
called 'The Forms of Upbringing Children Left Without Parental Care'
– detail instructions for child protection
in cases of kids separated from their parents
[ Boris ] How to provide a foster family, navigate adoptions
[ Boris ] Before 2013, there wasn't a single word on helping a family
[ GEO ] YALTA, CRIMEA
[ VO ] Tatyana Bolshakova from Yalta invested in
a business but lost all her savings and her job.
[ VO ] She turned to social services for legal assistance
and help with winter clothes for her daughter.
[ Tatyana Bolshakova ] I cried a lot. I just thought, 'What's wrong with these people!'
[ Tatyana ] Is it really so hard to give advice on who
to ask for help? I didn't ask for new clothes
[ VO ] In the end, social services played a decisive role in
limiting Tatyana’s parental rights and taking her daughter away.
[ Zhanna Kislitsyna, Director, Crimean Social
Services Centre ] All these things are trivial
[ Zhanna ] In order to help the family, the family has to accept the help
[ Zhanna ] But the family has categorically refused it
[ Zhanna ] It became clear that there was a real threat to the child's life and health
[ VO ] Tatyana never refused to cooperate with child services. She was
simply reluctant to be taken again with her daughter to a hospital
and the resident registration office. Her reasons will come clear
later. A court ruling stripped Tatyana in absentia of parental rights
but she knew nothing about it until several months later , when ten
officials came to take her child away. Child protection officers had
used Tatyana’s registered address, despite knowing where the family
actually lived. That’s why she knew nothing of the court’s decision
[ Tatyana ] 10 people break into your home and put you against the wall
[ Tatyana ] You're defenceless
[ Tatyana ] I took all these people for, I don't know, simply home invaders
[ Tatyana ] I've just been in extreme emotional distress
[ Nikolay ] We work with children, children's lives,
and we understand separating kids from their families is a last resort
[ Nikolay ] Hesitating could be fatal
[ Nikolay ] Up to that time, the prevention services do a tremendous job
[ VO ] Tatyana wasn’t allowed to visit her daughter, or
even know where she was. Social services suspected that
[ VO ] Tatyana had starved her daughter, which is why they thought
the child was underweight. The mother hadn’t taken her
child to a paediatrician for some time, or renewed her
disability assessment. The mother’s old Ukrainian passport
had not been replaced with a Russian one, nor had she
taken her daughter to school. What was really going on?
[ Zhanna ] If she has no Russian citizenship documents,
the child's disability annuity can't be renewed
[ Zhanna ] Thus, she had no health insurance and the mother violated her child's rights
[ Tatyana ] Here's the passport I tried to change to a Russian one
[ Tatyana ] I brought the Marriage Verification Certificate
and they requested verification of changing my last name
[ Natasha ] What's the problem? Why… [ Tatyana ] Because it's in Ukraine
[ Tatyana ] I tried to get it for free,
but they said it'd cost $500. They make money off this. What can you do?
[ Tatyana ] And it just so happened that… I had
no social security and low income at the time
[ VO ] Tatyana’s daughter was born with a dislocated hip,
which was put on record. Over 13 years she went through
several examinations and was seen by numerous doctors,
but so far, none of the treatment has been effective.
[ Tatyana ] They offered to take her to a clinic
[ Tatyana ] I tried to explain there was no need for that
[ Tatyana ] I have an official response from the clinic stating that it was impossible
to renew the disability annuity without establishing a renewed diagnosis
[ Tatyana ] I explained to Zhanna Kislitsina that
the diagnosis was wrong and we had to sort it out
[ Tatyana ] A rheumatologist said the child was disabled
[ Tatyana ] But I knew if we accepted the rheumatology-related disability
they'd assign a treatment
[ Tatyana ] Hip dysplasia and rheumatoid arthritis are…
well… they have totally different treatments
[ Tatyana ] One - immunomodulators, the other - immunosuppressants
[ Tatyana ] It wasn't a solution to call the doctor we'd been seeing before
[ Tatyana ] We had to go right to the Health Ministry, letters and all
[ Tatyana ] And foremost, take my daughter
[ Nikolay Zinovyev, Head, Juvenile Commision ] Since 2015, the school
administration has been asking
division of child protection services to compel the mother
to arrange comprehensive education for her daughter
[ Natasha ] We've seen the principal's letter
saying the school couldn't provide homeschooling
[ Natasha ] I think it was because the child didn't have a computer – the obstacle
[ Nikolay ] Thankfully, I know she has one now
[ Natasha ] They got one as soon as she was taken
[ Tatyana ] We started homeschooling the child, right?
[ Tatyana ] I received from the Education Department
a letter saying they'd been notified that the
parent, as the child's legal representative,
had decided to transfer to homeschooling
[ Tatyana ] She'd been homeschooling before
[ Natasha ] Any complaints?
[ Tatyana ] I had some!
[ Tatyana ] The teachers never came
[ Tatyana ] They were obliged to, but never did
[ Tatyana ] I had to carry the child to school in my arms every day
[ Nikolay ] The mother warned the principal she'd take her kid and live in the woods
[ Tatyana ] I said it in front of the kid, 'So, it's off to the woods to eat pine cones'
[ Tatyana ] It makes no sense, that phrase. I didn't mean any of it
[ Tatyana ] And now they say I wanted to run off
to the woods and live there with my daughter
[ Tatyana ] Thus, considering the gathered evidence,
the court finds the defendant's indifference
towards vital aspects of her daughter's life indicates it would be dangerous
to leave the child with the mother
[ Tatyana ] I sought legal advice, but the prices were impossibly high
[ Tatyana ] When the bailiff called me to see the court order,
it turned out I was six months overdue in child support
[ Tatyana ] So I pulled myself together
[ VO ] After months of legal battles the Court reinstated Tatyana’s parental
rights but now she wants the officials who took her daughter from her to
be punished. However, child protection services insist that they made the
right decision and that in the end, it all worked out better for everyone.
[ Nikolay ] From the moment the court ordered to restrict her parental rights
and the child was taken away and examined,
the mother changed her offending behaviour
[ Tatyana ] It says in the discharge that the
child was admitted with a temperature of 36.5C
[ Tatyana ] And they brought her back vomiting and with a fever
[ Tatyana ] They never examined the child
[ Tatyana ] She hasn't been diagnosed
[ Tatyana ] She hasn't been treated
[ VO ] In 2018, Russia’s highest number of recorded child abuse cases
was in Perm region. Family inspections were ramped up after the deputy
school principal’s landmark case. One of her students had been losing a
lot of weight and she didn’t report it to social services. The girl later
died of starvation due to parental neglect. Since that tragic death, all
schools in the Perm region have been obliged to monitor troubled families
more closely, and social services started applying the most stringent
measures to take children into care even in the most unambiguous cases.
[ GEO ] Chernushka, Perm region
[ VO ] The people of Chernushka town are generally not highly paid, despite a
nearby oilfield. Since 2019, Nikolay and his mother, Tamara have been fighting
to get two of his ex-wife’s children back into the family. She turned to alcohol
almost immediately after their son was born and soon abandoned the family.
[ Nikolay Vinitsky ] I never thought it'd turn out this way
[ Nikolay ] That she'd do this: set up her kids, abandon them
[ Nikolay ] I was just… I couldn't imagine it
[ Nikolay ] She took the girls to that awful place
[ Nikolay ] The place was a dump with drinking parties
[ Nikolay ] We took the girls away from there
[ Nikolay ] They saw where they had been living
and realised it would be better to stay with us
[ Nikolay ] They thought that their mother and I might get along again
[ Nikolay ] They were still hoping
[ Nikolay ] But then they realised their mother abandoned them
[ VO ] When Karina’s teacher heard that the mother had
left, she reported it to child protection service.
[ Nikolay ] Karina got ill and the teacher texted me, 'Where's Karina?'
[ Nikolay ] I didn't see it, didn't reply
[ Nikolay ] She texted, 'I'm reporting to child services and to the police that
your family is so mixed up and in a bad way
[ VO ] The officials believed that the girls were living in a family without legal
guardians. However, they didn’t go to their home to take the girls, but to the school.
[ Tamara Gorbunova, Nikolay Vinitsky’s Mother ] I burst into tears and
so did Karina when Kolya called
[ Tamara ] And, you know, if we went to school, they'd take them away at once
[ Tamara ] If we didn't, they'd search and take them anyway
[ Tamara ] I said to Kolya, 'Alright, we'll go. But only so the girls stay together'
[ Irina Zudova, Perm Regional Head, Ministry Of
Social Development ] The case was reviewed at
an interagency meeting,
which decided the children should be institutionalised…
in the town of Chaikovsky
[ Natasha ] A question: are they… [ Irina ] Due to deprived background
[ Natasha ] So the stepfather lacks money to support them or…
[ Irina ] There were no bed sheets. I believe,
school inspectors might comment on that as well
[ Irina ] The interdepartmental inspection has begun
[ Irina ] The family was inspected to find out where the girl's been,
why she was out of school so long
[ Natasha ] For how long exactly?
[ Irina ] You can ask that at school
[ Natasha ] It might have been easier to buy bed
sheets, if you think they were short of bed sheets,
instead of taking the girls from their family
[ Irina ] No comment
[ Natalya Popkova, Deputy Director, Chernushka School ] The teacher reported to
the social care teacher
[ Natalya ] Because if she couldn't make contact with the stepdad,
then maybe the social teacher could
[ Nikolay ] Karina just started school
[ Nikolay ] And they began asking Evgenia for class fees or something
[ Nikolay ] She said that we weren’t going to pay for that
[ Nikolay ] That's why she turned mean to our family, to Karina
[ Nikolay ] Karina got ill and threw up during class
[ Nikolay ] And in front of the whole class, the teacher made her clean up after herself
[ Nikolay ] The child was sick. What was she thinking?
[ Natalya ] The teacher did the right thing, by the book
[ Natalya ] She had no intention of removing Karina from the class. No
[ Natalya ] You know, we ourselves were shocked when the girl…
[ Natalya ] When we file an issue with child protective services,
do you think we don't worry?
[ Aleksey Mazurov Activist, All-Russian Parents’ Resistance,
Perm Region ] School, being a part of this so-called
interdepartmental cooperation,
is turning into a repressive apparatus
[ Aleksey ] Undesired parents get reported anonymously
[ Aleksey ] So, what happens next?
[ Aleksey ] There was a case in Perm recently of a famous activist
[ Aleksey ] When both the human rights ombudsman and children's rights ombudsman
were asked about how they could respond to such an anonymous report,
they answered, 'Well, the services can't ignore it'
[ VO ] Also in Perm region…
[ VO ] A demonstration in support of Lyudmila Eltysheva.
She has many children and claims that the authorities
have targeted her because she protested actively
against the decision to discontinue a local train route
[ Lyudmila Yoltysheva, Activist, Has Several Children ]
I got a call from Juvenile Affairs
[ Lyudmila ] They wanted to check my living conditions
[ Lyudmila ] I let neither child protective services nor Juvenile Affairs into my home
[ Lyudmila ] So they started persecuting my family
[ Lyudmila ] And it began with a false anonymous report
[ Lyudmila ] They couldn't come up with anything better…
[ Lyudmila ] My children were healthy
[ Lyudmila ] In 2018, I didn't take one of my small kids to the clinic
[ Lyudmila ] Even then there was talk – the clinic chief told me she was under pressure
from the Health Ministry to put my family in the risk group
[ Lyudmila ] By any means – for not being vaccinated or for skipping medical examinations
[ Lyudmila ] So the main goal was to put my family on the list
[ VO ] The railway line was shut down, the rails have even
been removed. Meanwhile, Perm’s activists saw Lyudmila as
an example of how easily the child protection laws can be
used against anyone. All it takes is an anonymous report.
[ VO ] Back in Chernushka, Nikolay continues to hope he can get
full custody of the girls. He’s still collecting documents. At
the same time, he’s renovating his office to get his business
back on track because he needs to show he has a steady income.
[ Nikolay ] We've been living without their mother, Evgenia, for a year
[ Nikolay ] I supported the kids – they were always well-fed and clothed
[ Nikolay ] I have an outdoor advertising business
[ Nikolay ] We also install video surveillance equipment
[ VO ] But a sudden call from his ex-wife’s stepfather came as an unpleasant surprise
[ Nikolay ] He got a call from child services
[ Nikolay ] They asked, 'Would you take the children?'
[ Nikolay ] It surprised me
[ Nikolay ] We'd written to them over and over again
[ Nikolay ] They answered, 'You're nobody'
[ Nikolay ] Then they call, though they don't know him, and offer custody
[ Nikolay ] I got a meeting with the child protection chief officer Zudova
[ Nikolay ] Then she said, 'Why would we give them to you for free? At no cost?'
[ Nikolay ] I was shocked at how direct that was
[ Nikolay ] Like I came to a shop to buy them. 'Why would we give them to you for free?'
[ VO ] Nikolay filed a complaint with the local Prosecutor asking for an
investigation into the child protection services’ misconduct,
but the Prosecutors found no violations.
[ Dmitry Krivoshchyokov, Prosecutor, Chernushinsky District,
Perm Region ] We've got no information that the Interdistrict
Territorial Administration Office in any way
opposes Nikolay's requests, is denying support,
or seeking other foster families for the girls
[ Dmitry ] Legally, Nikolay Vinitsky hasn't been either girl's father, or foster father
[ Dmitry ] Child services filed a lawsuit in order
to deprive the girls' mother of her parental rights
[ Dmitry ] The matter was decided
[ Dmitry ] Since then, in our response to the applicant, Vinitsky, it's been clarified
that by some criteria he has the highest priority for custody
[ Aleksey ] There was no reason to tear apart, split up that family
[ Aleksey ] Why would a normal person do that?
[ Aleksey ] They're not lowlifes. They're absolutely normal
[ Aleksey ] The father works
[ Aleksey ] The day they understood, documented, that the mother hadn't been living
with the girls for over a year,
all the child services officers had to do was ask Nikolay and the rest of the family
and to offer him temporary custody,
as per Article 12: Guardianship and Custody under Russian Federal Law
[ Aleksey ] They only needed Nikolay's passport
and to assess the living conditions in the
flat where the girls had lived for many years
[ Aleksey ] We had to deal with a similar situation a year ago,
when for the whole year we were trying to actually get children home
[ Aleksey ] It was the exact same people doing that – Ms. Zudova and Ms. Valkova,
of the Perm Region Social Development Ministry, Chernushinsky District
Territorial Administration Office #4
[ VO ] Also in the Perm region, a village.
Here, having a house heated by a wood stove can be a reason for
children to be taken from their families, and in this region, wood
fired heating is very common. Social services can consider such
facilities to be a danger to children’s lives and health. These girls’
parents had to extend the house while still earning a living and
paying child maintenance despite having been stripped of full parental
rights. Several reasons were cited for taking the children: one had
suffered a burn and their living conditions were deemed unsuitable
[ Nikolay Baev ] Well, the burn wasn't that bad. A little singe
[ Nikolay ] She burned her legs a little. Half
[ Aleksey ] They really should have gone to
hospital, but the parents thought they could manage
[ Aleksey ] Maybe they were mistaken - Maybe
[ Nikolay ] They said that we lacked a water supply system
[ Nikolay ] I said, 'No plumbing to the house, true. We get water from the well'
[ Nikolay ] They said, 'The toilet's more than 50m from the house…'
[ Nikolay ] So I went the same day they took the kids to the hospital
Valkova said, 'If you don't file a half-year parental rights restriction,
we'll remove the kids automatically
[ Nikolay ] You'll be deprived right away. We'll go to court'
[ Nikolay ] You don't lose your kids every day - shocking
[ Nikolay ] Then it began. To see the kids, you need a drug test report
[ Aleksey ] So they had to fill out an application
every month, and each time child services
mocked them, asking for a full set of reports – drug, psychiatric, dermatological
[ Aleksey ] They got interested in moving children from their own families to foster ones
[ Aleksey ] All of the funding recipients are interested
[ Aleksey ] It's per capita funding for them. If a kid goes to hospital for a while,
the hospital gets state funds. We have to bear
in mind where this funding is replenished from
[ Aleksey ] It's drawn from the support parents have
to pay when they're separated from their child
[ Nikolay ] When we went to court we saw we had maintenance debts
[ Nikolay ] When we filed a lawsuit to restore the parental rights,
it turned out there was a debt - more than 100,000 roubles
[ Nikolay ] Right away they sent a letter to the collective farm where I work
[ Nikolay ] My salary was 12-13,000 a month. They took 50%
[ Aleksey ] We got the kids back to their family
[ Aleksey ] Imagine what families that don't know about us have to deal with!
[ Aleksey ] We're not talking about 10 or 50 or 100 such cases. There are many more
[ VO ] And we’re back in the Perm region, Russia’s child-protection testing ground
[ Tatyana Stremousova, Former Foster Parent ] How did I feel when…
[ Tatyana ] I was depressed - depressed for over a year
when my children, when one of them was ready to die
[ Tatyana ] And the other was depressed
[ Tatyana ] She wrote a letter, a whole page:
[ Tatyana ] 'Mum, I love you so much that I'm even prepared to die,
and you'll always be my Mum, and I love you so much…'
[ Tatyana ] There was a lot of stuff like that
[ VO ] Tatyana claims that the authorities took away the three children in
her care because she tried to defend her former foster daughter’s rights.
The girl was then an adult and living separately but turned to Tatyana
for help when she was forced to sign a form giving away her newborn baby.
[ Tatyana ] She told me: 'Two days after I gave birth, Valkova came to me, alone,
with no counsellors or anyone. So, she came and said,
[ Tatyana ] "Surrender the baby. You have no husband, no apartment…
[ Tatyana ] How will you take care of the child?
Where will you live? You have nowhere. Give him up"'
[ Tatyana ] She said, 'I lay there crying. I
didn't want to give him up, I wasn't prepared to
[ Tatyana ] Then she said, "Sign here that I came to see you." It was only the second day
[ Tatyana ] I was still very sore. So, I signed
Valkova left. Then someone else came,
some medical staff, and took the baby'
[ Tatyana ] She said it was only later that she realised they'd taken her child for good
Later Valkova and Kolopetko came to me and told me
if I tried to do anything, I'd lose my kids
[ Tatyana ] I spoke to her again: 'Alyona, they came and intimidated me'
[ Tatyana ] All this stuff. 'I can't do this with you.
[ Tatyana ] Go on your own to the public prosecutor's office,
file a complaint about your baby to get him back'
[ Tatyana ] So, she went. They told her, 'There's nothing to be done
[ Tatyana ] You signed the consent form, that's it'
[ Aleksey ] It's a huge problem that social
services - child protective services, above all -
assume no responsibility, there's no liability
for unlawful removal of children from families
[ Aleksey ] But there must be liability, even criminal liability
[ Aleksey ] Some cases are simply egregious
[ Aleksey ] For instance, in Nikolay's case, it made my hair stand on end
when I read what a therapist wrote in the report
[ Aleksey ] One of the girls suffered horrible psychological trauma
[ Aleksey ] She was already traumatised because her mother had left, and they added to it
[ Nikolay ] The results of Karina's psych assessment
[ Nikolay ] 'At the time of assessment, Karina exhibited a poor mental state
[ Nikolay ] She manifests low adaptive ability to new conditions, increased anxiety,
covert aggression, insecurity and fear
[ Nikolay ] The current situation is confusing for
Karina - she's not ready to trust those around her
[ Nikolay ] Karina perceives the family she lived with before adoption as her true one
[ Nikolay ] Greatest emotional significance is to
her dad Nikolay, brother, sister and grandma Tamara
[ Nikolay ] To her mum, the feelings are closer to emotional neglect
[ Nikolay ] To maintain her mental health and reduce her anxiety level,
the child's opinion must be considered'
[ VO ] The child protection service drew its own conclusion from that report
and moved the children to an undisclosed location for a fourth time.
[ Aleksey ] The driving force is per capita financing.
[ Aleksey ] Everyone's interested in moving kids around
[ Aleksey ] They're also interested in getting them fostered
[ Aleksey ] We hear a lot about foster parents
paying so-called kickbacks to employees
of Child Protective Services
[ Aleksey ] We have no proof. To get it, we'd need to dig deep into the matter,
and we're not authorised to do this
[ VO ] Meanwhime, Nikolay and Tamara were even denied the right
to visit the girls. They were told that it could subject the
children to unnecessary stress. Eventually, they did meet, but only
by chance. We asked Nikolay to take us to the famous village of
Kozmyash, or the Village of Custodians, as it’s sometimes known.
[ VO ] That’s another local experiment in which the Perm authorities take
pride. This is their way to eliminate children’s homes. Almost
every household in this village has eight or nine foster children.
[ VO ] The girls’ reacted in different ways to the unexpected encounter.
"I want to go home"
[ VO ] Nikolay finally had all the documents he
needed to apply for full custody. After several
unsuccessful attempts, he managed to file an application and was, again, denied custody
[ VO ] And Natalya from Nizhny Novgorod has no chance of getting her three
grandchildren back. They were taken just two days after her daughter’s funeral.
[ VO ] She couldn’t afford a lawyer and had no money to comply with child service’s
demands that she renovate her apartment and buy new furniture and appliances.
Social workers came to me
[ Natalya Shekhlovitskaya ] There were about 15 of them standing round me
[ Natalya ] They said, 'We're here to take Sergey to hospital for a check-up'
[ Natalya ] I asked, 'Why?'
[ Natalya ] 'He's not registered at a hospital' I said, 'Meaning?' He was only 3.5 months
[ Natalya ] I said, 'He's registered at Clinic 39, what's the problem?'
[ Natalya ] 'We'll take the kid now' and one came up behind me,
a tall girl, she twisted my arms behind my back
[ Natalya ] Of course, I tried to run to the kid,
but she didn't let me, my arms were all scratched
[ Natalya ] I turned round, the stroller was empty
and the baby was by the lift, I was in a real state
[ Natalya ] I'd just buried my daughter and a child was taken from me
[ Natalya ] They told me nothing, not which hospital, nothing
[ Natalya ] Of course, I burst into tears, it was awful
[ VO ] It wasn’t just that the social workers didn’t want to return the kids to their
grandmother, they even contacted their father who had abandoned the family long ago.
[ Ekaterina Baranova, Natalya Shekhlovitskaya’s
Granddaughter ] I was at school, Andrey was sick and
the deputy came to our lesson and called me
[ Ekaterina ] I didn't think I'd done anything to get called out
[ Ekaterina ] I went, and Dad was in the principal's office
[ Ekaterina ] All I recall is how he beat my mother, hit her on the back with a stool
[ Ekaterina ] I barely even recognised him
[ Ekaterina ] He was just some chubby little man
[ Ekaterina ] I sat down, he started saying, 'Come
and live with me.' The principal said the same
[ Ekaterina ] 'It'll be bad with granny, better with Dad.' She threatened us,
if we didn't sign we'd be sent to a kids' home. We were scared, so we signed
[ Ekaterina ] We came here to pack, and ran to tell Granny everything
[ Natalya ] Their dad came
all the neighbours came out,
they kept him from the kids
[ Natalya ] He wanted to take them to Tambov. Tambov Region
[ Natalya ] My neighbours didn't let him. He abused the children and beat my daughter
[ Natalya ] Once, he hit so hard, her eyes were
swollen shut, so swollen I barely knew her
[ Natalya ] An elderly neighbour saw how he kicked her, here, on this very spot
[ Natalya ] He wrapped her hair around his hand and dragged her home
[ Natalya ] Everyone came over, they all knew him. It was a scandal
[ Natalya ] A child protection officer came
[ VO ] The older kids were put in a place called 'Lastochka', a
rehabilitation centre and three-month-old Sergey was taken to another city.
[ VO ] Getting him back was much more challenging. The Grandmother was denied
temporary custody because her apartment didn’t meet the health standards.
[ Natalya ] Everyone responded to that pain,
to what child services did to us
[ Natalya ] People from all over started sending money,
anything they could spare, so much furniture,
people just gave it to us
[ Natalya ] They came...
and took all the old stuff away
[ VO ] And while the grandmother did her best to
meet the child protection service’s demands, Sergey
was added to the database of children waiting
for adoption where he was listed as an orphan.
[ Natalya ] 'Hello, hello, I'm Sergey Baranov's grandmother'
[ Natalya ] They say, 'Hello'
[ Natalya ] I asked how he's doing
[ Natalya ] 'It's all good, he's OK'
[ Natalya ] They say, 'You know about the hearing?'
I said, 'What hearing, what's it for?'
[ Natalya ] 'A couple from Moscow want to adopt him'
[ Natalya ] Sergey dear, come here! Come on my...
[ Natalya ] Come here, little one
[ Natalya ] My little kitten!
[ Natalya ] Just think, I might never have seen him again
[ Natalya ] What a pretty ball!
[ VO ] Three days before the hearing to consider Sergey’s adoption by a
couple from Moscow, his grandmother finally managed to find a lawyer, Albina
Volkova, represented the family in and out of court for free. She could never
have afforded to pay for a lawyer on her monthly pension of 10,000 roubles.
[ Natalya ] This photo is from when Sergey was taken to a children's home
By Elena Mitrofanova
[ Natalya ] And this photograph, this was taken...
when he was put up for adoption, as an orphan
[ Albina Volkova, Activist, All-Russian Parents’ Resistance,
Nizhny Novgorod ] We have a law that says children
have the right to be with their relatives
[ Albina ] Of course, this whole situation was bewildering, I was shocked...
by what criteria..
child services were saying that the child was an orphan
[ Albina ] But the scariest part of it all was...
that if the claim had been upheld...
the relatives' rights to that child
would've been lost forever
[ Albina ] They'd never have been able to know where he was or who he was with
[ Albina ] They wouldn't even know
if he was alive or not
[ Albina ] So, that particular court violated
the rights of three children at the same time
[ Natalya ] No one else cares...
but I'd move mountains!
[ Natalya ] For any one of my kids, I would, as they say, tear throats out!
[ Natalya ] He'd already lost everything, his mum and dad, he nearly lost us too
[ Natalya ] He wouldn't even know he had a family
[ Natalya ] Imagine how a child would feel then!
[ Natalya ] His heart would know anyway
[ Natalya ] I'd have felt awful
and even now...
[ Natalya ] I still cry, I cry all the time
[ VO ] That case was won but then they had to face a series
of hearings at which child protection fought hard to contest
the grandmother’s right to raise her own grandchildren. For
the whole time, the children had to stay in children’s homes
[ Albina ] They had no reason to deny the grandmother,
or to allege that she couldn't raise her oldest grandson
[ Albina ] Child services tried to prove their case
by citing a quarrel he'd had with a peer
[ Albina ] It turned out that...
one of the teenagers...
had said, in Andrey's presence...
[ Albina ] 'Your mother's dead, it serves you right!'
[ Albina ] Further 'evidence' of Andrey's supposedly bad upbringing
was Elena Mitrofanova's allegation...
that the child lived as a vagrant
[ Albina ] She supported the vagrancy claim in court...
with a report by police officers, who detained...
a 15-year-old minor
at 10:15, in the street and unaccompanied by adults
[ Albina ] He lost time playing football and walked home in the summer
[ Albina ] They took him home and when they did, it was 10:15
[ Albina ] In court she was asked, 'Where's the vagrancy in that?'
[ Albina ] Mitrofanova, with feigned surprise in her eyes, said...
[ Albina ] 'Well...
Your Honour...
when he was detained he was roaming the streets!
[ Albina ] He was wandering like a tramp! That's vagrancy'
[ Albina ] That's the logic, that's the wisdom,
the philosophically-biased knowledge of the head of the child protection service
[ Natalya ] We won in every court, in all the courts
[ Natalya ] Mitrofanova couldn't let go, she appealed all three court rulings
[ Natalya ] I really don't think she could imagine that some old lady...
would outplay her
[ Natalya ] I have a suspicion that...
she wanted to sell Sergey
[ Natalya ] Of course I can't be sure but the adoptive mother called me,
and when she learned that we'd won in court,
that it wouldn't work for her,
she said something along the lines of,
[ Natalya ] 'How do I get my money? They won't give it back to me'
[ Natalya ] Then I knew,
something was rotten in child services
[ Albina ] We have a law that says, if children's rights are violated numerous times,
child services are criminally liable
[ Albina ] In this, the Prosecutor's position's surprising,
municipal, district and regional
[ Albina ] In this matter, we repeatedly reported
violations by the head of child protection
both to city prosecutors and the administration
[ Albina ] I think this is where meddling is at play,
administrative resources
an attempt to save face, and a reluctance to betray their own
[ Albina ] For two years, the child protection head has faced no sanctions at all
[ Albina ] She continues to represent our authorities
[ Albina ] It's very upsetting to hear when...
you start to defend...
people who are disadvantaged, who are poor
and 70% of our people live below the poverty line, they say,
[ Albina ] 'Albina, we respect you as a person, but they're misfits, why defend them?'
[ Albina ] So, since then, they're who I call misfits,
people who violate the rights of the disadvantaged, they're the misfits to me
[ Boris Altshuler, Human Rights Activist ] We have laws already
the President's instructions protect the family, new mechanisms and decrees,
but none of it works properly
[ Boris ] Article 70, the Procedure for Depriving Parents of Rights
[ Boris ] It just needs these simple words added:
[ Boris ] 'Courts may consider petitions to deprive
parents of rights and make such rulings, only
if a report is submitted to the court
on preventative measures aimed at helping the
family to restore the parent-child relationship'
[ Boris ] That would end this 'factory' making 100 orphans a day
[ Boris ] Because they wouldn't be able to consider,
removing parents' rights until child services or Juvenile Affairs
or the court, asks social services to offer help and work with the family
[ Boris ] It's not always irreversible, of course, there are hopeless cases,
[ Boris ] But they are far fewer than when this factory operates non-stop