Inna Miroshnychenko was shocked by the conditions in a special school in the Ternopil region where children live: there is no toilet paper, they wash on Fridays

Lawyer Inna Miroshnychenko, who works on adoption issues in Ukraine, visited the Novosilsk Special School (orphanage) in Ternopil region, where in November alleged human rights violations in the form of sexual and mental abuse were discovered. She showed photos from inside the building and demonstrated the conditions in which children live.

Miroshnychenko said that the documents to initiate a criminal case have already been signed. She said that the children complained to her about cruel punishment in the form of being sent to a psychiatric hospital. The lawyer posted the photos taken in the specialized institution on InstaStories.

She noted that the state annually allocates almost 20 million hryvnias for this orphanage. However, it is not known how much money comes from charitable foundations.

In the first photo, Miroshnychenko showed the toilet. The children "can forget about privacy" because there are no stalls in the room, only short partitions made of chipboard. The lawyer also noted that she did not see any toilet paper there.

"The door is not locked. There is a playroom opposite the door. So you have to learn to go to the toilet in front of everyone," Miroshnychenko said.

Among the next rooms was a bathroom. The lawyer noted that the children could only wash for two hours a week – on Fridays from 20 to 22. The staff justified this decision by saying that hot water was expensive.

"This is a bathtub where 'everyone can take a bath'. But only on Friday. From 20 to 22 hours. Because bath day is once a week. The bathtub is in the corner of a huge room. There is no curtain. There is not even a tap. So... there is no way to wash. If it doesn't work in the bath, there is a shower. It's still only on Fridays for all 95 children. From 20 to 22, because at other times the hot water is not turned on. It's expensive. The shower is turned on with one button for everyone. The curtain is also the same for everyone, as you can see. This is actually the same curtain. Maybe it's better not to close it. And not to wash in such a shower more than once a week. Because you really come in cleaner than you go out," the lawyer said.

In the following photos, she compared what the children and staff eat. Moreover, the special education classroom, where children were supposed to learn to cook on their own, has turned into a staff kitchen.

"And this is the Vocational Education classroom. This is a subject that is supposed to teach children how to cook to be able to survive after graduation. There are no children in this class. This is the staff kitchen. These are the traces of a banquet that ended the inspection of some controlling body the day before ours. "They checked it well, didn't they?" she pointed and added in the next story: "This is also part of the 'result of the previous inspection'. There were five more bottles on the floor. Some empty, some half-drunk."

In the next shots, children appeared, having lunch with a sandwich and hot water, which is called compote.

Finally, the lawyer showed what the rooms where the children spend most of their time look like. In the bedrooms, the furniture is barely "alive," and in the playroom, there are almost no toys. Instead, all the toys can be seen in a separate room near the principal's office.

"There is a beautifully renovated playroom near the principal's office with a bunch of toys, some of which are in their packaging. Do children come here? No. This is a room from the route "for volunteers and inspections." None of the children I interviewed have ever been there," the lawyer said.

Why the scandal around the Novosilsk Special School arose

The Novosilsk Special School revealed facts of violations of children's rights – they were subjected to violent acts. This was discovered during a monitoring visit by a representative of the Ombudsman for Children's Rights, and an investigation was launched.

The investigation is into the improper performance of professional duties to protect the life and health of minors, the illegal placement of a healthy person in a psychiatric institution, sexual violence, and abuse of office.

"We had a monitoring visit to one of the institutions in our region chaired by the representative of the Ombudsman for Children's Rights, Iryna Suslova. The monitoring team found several circumstances that led us to call the law enforcement agencies and submit it for investigation. Since there are underage children in this institution, I think it is incorrect to make all the circumstances that we have discovered public," said Oleksandr Krynytskyi, a representative of the Human Rights Commissioner in Ternopil region.

A total of 95 students study at the Novosilsk Special School. These children are aged 7 to 18 and have intellectual disabilities. Some of them live in the institution permanently, and some of them go home every day.

"A 16-year-old girl who was transferred from another community is studying at the school. She is deprived of parental care. It was this child who appealed to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. At her request, the school was inspected," representatives of the Novosilsk special school said in a comment to Zaxid.net.

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