BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/12/2006

Belarus calls off orphans' trip to Italy after abuse row

Tom Kington in Rome The Guardian

A diplomatic row over the alleged sexual abuse of a 10-year-old Belarussian orphan has led to the cancellation of a Christmas visit to Italy by thousands of other orphans from the former Soviet state.

The Belarussian government has refused to allow 2,500 orphans to stay with Italian families after an Italian couple blocked the return home of a visiting orphan in September, claiming she had been abused in her Belarussian orphanage.

Alessandro Giusto and his wife, Chiara Bornacin, said the 10-year-old, known only as Maria to protect her identity, showed signs of beating and had tried to commit suicide by drowning during her visit. Ms Bornacin said she would rather go to prison than see Maria hurt again.

The couple took Maria into hiding, but she was found three weeks later by Italian police at a secluded Alpine monastery and returned to Belarus.

"I believe their act of egoism has given the Belarussian government an excuse to act the way it has," said Antonio Bianchi, president of AVIB, an association involved in the summer and Christmas visits to Italy by Belarussian children, which were set up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

"We are not responsible for what is happening, and we have had no news of Maria," Mr Giusto told Italy's Corriere della Sera. "We feel enormous pain for her and all the children who cannot come this Christmas."

In the run-up to the Christmas visit, the Minsk government said that orphans could fly to Italy on condition they stayed in institutions and not with families. Belarussian children with parents, who also visit Italy regularly and were set to number about 2,500 this Christmas, were to be allowed to stay in family homes.

In an apparent game of political hardball, the Italian government refused the conditions set down, demanding that all the children went to families or none at all. On December 15 the Italian minister for social solidarity, Paolo Ferrero, wrote to the host Italian families to announce "with a dead heart" that the tactic had failed and Minsk was closing the door for Christmas.

"This was a mistake by the Italian government," said Mr Bianchi. "We should have let them come and stay in institutions as a way to keep dialogue open for the future."

Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1974351,00.html

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