Yesterday a minor,13-year-old girl, R.I, had to have an abortion after becoming pregnant as a result of being exposed to sexual abuse as child in the care of the state care institution “25 May”, in Skopje, announced the European Roma Rights Centre.
R.I. is traumatized after the procedure which her parents were denied from attending, against her expressed wishes. The responsible institutions have not undertaken any measures to help R.I. and her family get out of poverty, nor have they acknowledged their failure to protect a minor from sexual abuse while in a state run institution”, outlines the ERRC.
On March 1, 2017, the ERRC received information from her parents that R.I. had gone missing from the state care institution “25 May”. The care authorities did not report the matter to the police or parents.
According to her testimony to an ERRC human rights monitor, R.I. had been forcibly taken by an older man from the institution who drove her to his home in another city. There he forced her into sexual acts and physical labor. She managed to escape after a month and get a bus back to Skopje
where police found her at Bit Pazar market. She also described how she had previously been taken to a ‘children’s summer camp’ in Struga, along with other children from the state care institution. There an unknown older man had sexually abused her, before she was taken back to Skopje. When she reported these abuses to care workers she was accused of lying and inventing the stories. R.I. was then transferred to another state care institution called Ranka Milanovik in Skopje, where she found out she was pregnant as a result of the sexual violence.
The ERRC has received similar testimonies from two sisters also at the “25 May” institution, V.A aged 16, and L.A. aged 13. They would also frequently go missing from the care home, and their disappearances similarly went unreported to police and parents. According to their testimony, an older man identifying himself as an employee of the Centre for Social Work took them from the home to Skopje’s old train station, where he sexually abused them. Their mother reported the case to the police and took them to a gynecologist, who concluded that the girls had indeed suffered sexual violence.
Based on these three cases, the ERRC is supporting the parents of these girls in taking the state care institution “25 May”, the Inter-municipal Centre for Social Work, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy to court. The ERRC also adds that they are making efforts for the sisters to be returned to their mother after a court decision ordered it on 26th January 2018. The Centre for Social Work have refused to abide by the decision of the court and the ERRC are appealing this with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is calling on the responsible authorities to act immediately and to provide this girl with appropriate medical care, to provide her help in the sense of post-traumatic psychological treatment, to take safety measures and to return her to her family, from which she was forcibly taken away six years ago because of poverty.
“The authorities at this care home were at best, negligent of the sexual abuse going on, and at worst complicit” said ERRC president Djordje Jovanovic, adding that “these girls and their families are incredibly brave to take those responsible for allowing this to happen to court.”
According to a freedom of information request sent by the ERRC, two thirds (22 out of a total of 32) of children at the care institution “25 May” are of Romani ethnicity. The evidence of systemic sexual
abuse of Romani children in this institution means that all of these children are in danger for as long as authorities continue to ignore what is happening.
“The Macedonian government is further victimizing Romani families living in poverty by failing to initiate an investigation on their wellbeing and turning a blind eye to abuse. In the meantime, there is a frightened 13-year-old in Skopje today who urgently needs medical, financial, and family support because of the failures of state care authorities to protect her”, is said by the European Roma Rights Centre.
Dehran Muratov
