"Greece's Horrifying Conditions at Children's Care Center", article in Greek Reporter, from February 17, 2011

Source:

Greece's Horrifying Conditions at Children's Care Center, article by Polina Dimea, dated 17 February 2011, Greek Reporter

https://greece.greekreporter.com/2011/02/17/greeces-horrifying-conditions-at-children’s-care-center/

The article:

Greece's Horrifying Conditions at Children's Care Center

By Polina Dimea - Feb 17, 2011

For more than twenty years young children and teenagers have been tortured, abused and died in the “hell” of Child Care Center (KEPEP) in Lechaina, Peleponnese.

Innocent lives spend their dull days tied up at their beds. Some are enclosed in real wooden cages equipped just with a mattress. Children with physical or mental problems just eat and vegetate. A report by a British physiotherapist, who offered voluntary work from July to December 2009, unveiled the drama of the children and the Middles [sic] Ages conditions.

Those children are forgotten by the social services and even their parents. Some of the children are autistic or have impaired vision. However, there are some that are aware and can well understand. When forced to live in these conditions, they often hit their heads against the wall or uproot their hair (an indication of serious psychological trauma in children).

The rooms have no colours, toys and incentives for improvement and creativity. “Every day the caretakers change the diapers of all children without any privacy. Also showers, 3 times per week, take place collectively." No respect is shown to their fundamental rights; their private and social life is absolutely “shipwrecked”.

Furthermore, she points out the unwillingness and indifference of caretakers and medical experts to offer their help, the absence of financial means, physiologist and psychologist therapies in order to provide these children with even a minimum quality of life.

Last but not least, the psychotherapist wonders how it is possible for children with such problems to live in inhuman conditions in a European country at the dawn of the 21st century. They are human beings with needs and wishes.