EU HELPING, BUT MUST DO MORE FOR EAST EUROPEAN ORPHANAGES - LIZ LYNNE MEP

12.00.00am GMT Tue 22nd Jan 2008

The EU must do more to help de-institutionalise disabled children's care homes such as the one featured in the shocking BBC documentary 'Bulgaria's Abandoned Children', but should be quick to condemn Member States who fail to improve conditions, according to a local Euro MP.

Liz Lynne MEP, who is Vice President of the European Parliament's All Party Disability Intergroup and Member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, has long campaigned for the de-institutionalisation of all disabled people. She said:

"Like many people, I was horrified by the distressing images of neglect in 'Bulgaria's Abandoned Children' and was not surprised to receive a large amount of letters from worried and angry constituents, so I contacted my Bulgarian colleagues and the European Commission to see what could be done.

"Commissioner Frattini assured me that the Bulgarian authorities must now provide plans for progress on standards in care homes and that a recent Commission study was hugely in favour of deinstitutionalisation, detailing how community care could be readily achieved.

"While this is positive news, the European Commission must do more by offering aid such as training resources for care workers, but it must also be prepared to condemn governments who do not act to improve standards.

"I am delighted that in the meantime moves have been made to shut down the Mogilino home featured in 'Bulgaria's Abandoned Children', but must we wait for a horrific documentary on every such home before governments are kicked into action by the outcry?"

ENDS

Notes to editors:

On the 19th of November 2007, Liz Lynne MEP asked the following European Parliamentary question:

Is the Commission aware of the shocking scenes of neglected, malnourished and injured children in the recent BBC documentary 'Bulgaria's Abandoned Children' about the situation at the Mogilino home and the distress it has caused both in the UK and Bulgaria?

Has any EU action been undertaken as a result of the documentary and what help can be offered so that no EU citizen has to endure these appalling conditions in the future?

Answer given by Mr Frattini on behalf of the Commission:

The Commission shares the Honourable Members' concerns relating to the situation of children in Bulgaria. The Commission is in touch with the Bulgarian authorities to have information on new plans of action in Bulgaria to ensure that high standards are implemented in children's care homes.

Furthermore, the Commission organised and funded a study on the comparative cost of community-based services as an alternative to closed institutions. It provides scientifically well founded analyses related to the provision of community-based forms of care, health and support services in order to support independent living of people with disabilities. It also provides the concerned stakeholders with precise and practical guidelines on the process leading to deinstitutionalisation, describing how best current financial resources could be shifted and reallocated in order to meet the needs of people with disabilities in a situation of dependency.

The European Community and its Member States, including Bulgaria, signed the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which is a legally-binding instrument that changes the approach to disability. It clearly states the right to both an independent living and being included in the community and it also provides for full implementation of this right.

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Last week at the European Parliament in Strasbourg (16th January), Liz Lynne raised the issue of the European Council of Ministers obliging Member States to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities:

Before accession, we called on all Member States who wanted to come into the European Union to abide by European Union rules. I know Bulgaria has signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, but it has not ratified it. Can you put pressure on those countries that have not ratified that Convention to do just that?

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The BBC documentary 'Bulgaria's Abandoned Children' followed the lives of 75 children in a care home in Mogilino, Bulgaria. According to Bulgarian MEPs, many of the children shown have since been moved and are being cared for by a team of volunteers.

In the programme, one child had her thumb cut off, 'because she kept sucking it.' Many of the children shown were unable to speak, not necessarily because they were incapable, but because no-one has taught them to do so. All of them were malnourished, and many had broken bones.

Bulgaria has more institutionalised mentally and physically disabled children than anywhere else in Europe, and whilst efforts have been made to move away from institutionalisation, the program showed how far there is still to go.