Adoptions
Child abuse, Bulgaria condemned: "Reports from Italian judges ignored"
by Fabrizio Gatti February 4, 2021
According to the European Court of Human Rights, Sofia did not investigate. And the role of the Milanese association Aibi in creating "an atmosphere of conflict" that did not favor the investigation is central
The reports of abuse transmitted by the Italian judiciary should not have been immediately archived. The shocking testimonies of three children, who had suffered atrocious sexual violence together with other children of the same age in a Bulgarian orphanage , were credible and detailed. The children had begun to confide in the psychologists appointed by the adoptive family, after their adoption in Italy concluded in 2012 with the mediation of the association “Aibi – Amici dei bambini” of Milan. And they had then confirmed their words before the public prosecutor of a Juvenile Prosecutor's Office who, following international procedures, had transmitted the documents to Sofia. The judicial file described children who had also been raped by adults, who on some occasions had filmed the attacks.
For this reason, on 2 February the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights condemned Bulgaria , upholding the appeal against an initial decision of the Court that had rejected the appeal of the adoptive parents. According to the majority of judges, the Sofia authorities "who did not avail themselves of the available investigations and international cooperation mechanisms, did not take all reasonable measures to shed light on the case and did not carry out a complete and careful analysis of the evidence submitted to them. The omissions observed", explains a note from the European Court, "appeared sufficiently serious to consider that the investigation carried out was not effective in accordance with the purposes of Article 3 of the Convention, interpreted in the light of other international provisions and in particular the Lanzarote Convention".
INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENTS
According to the Grand Chamber, Bulgaria has therefore violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which in Article 3 establishes that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". Even more so if the children were under ten years old at the time. The Bulgarian State will therefore have to compensate the three children , assisted by the lawyer Francesco Mauceri, within three months with a total sum of thirty-six thousand euros.
The judges, also due to the lack of in-depth investigations, do not maintain that the reported violence actually occurred and that therefore there was a violation of the substantial part of Article 3. Instead, they establish that Bulgaria violated the procedural part that should have ascertained the possible substantial violation of the same article. A principle that concerns the States, which however must not be deprived of the full collaboration of the intermediation associations that, in international adoptions, operate with the authorization and on behalf of the respective governments.
THE THEORY DICTED BY MILAN
Among the ninety-eight pages of reasons , the non-appealable judgment of the Grand Chamber dedicates entire paragraphs to the conduct of the association Aibi-Amici dei bambini , which is based in San Giuliano Milanese and is supported by famous testimonials from the world of politics, entertainment and sports. "The conclusion of the Grand Chamber", note in a joint opinion judges Turkovi?, Pinto de Albuquerque, Bošnjak and the Italian Raffaele Sabato, "could be integrated, in our view, by the consideration that the reasoning adopted by the Bulgarian judicial authorities and by the State Agency for Child Protection substantially reaffirmed the theory advanced by the association that had acted as an intermediary for the adoption".
“The representatives of that association,” the judges explained, referring to Aibi, “when the adoptive parents approached them after the first disclosure of the abuse, began to express the opinion that the parents were not suitable to adopt the children, on the basis of their behaviour during a meeting organised by the association on 2 October 2012. The Court was unable to ascertain whether the report on this meeting between the association’s staff, the parents and the children was authentic, given that… the applicants produced a police report stating that three representatives of the association had to provide proof of their signature, and acknowledged that the report bears three different signatures, all written by the same hand.”
THE RETOUCHED REPORT
“Furthermore,” the judges of the Grand Chamber noted, “the report apparently showed discrepancies in the text, in the form of additions and deletions, which the Court was unable to verify. Regardless of whether the Bulgarian authorities knew from the beginning about this alleged forgery, it appears clear to us that the forgery of the document was discussed by the applicants before the Grand Chamber without the Government responding on the point. This circumstance, together with the fact that the association met with representatives of the various authorities involved... and drafted a highly critical report on the adoptive parents' account, which it then transmitted to the Juvenile Court... testifies to the central role played by the association in creating an atmosphere of conflict which did not favour the initiation of effective investigations".
"The Court", the judges continue in the judgment, still referring to Aibi, "also regretted thatthe association that acted as intermediary for the adoption with the authorities of the respondent State, had sent a note to the Court in which it expressed the opinion that the parents were unsuitable as adoptive parents because – in the opinion of the association – they had triggered a process of denunciation of abuses that did not exist , with the aim of denigrating the procedure that had led to the adoption. The content of this decision, in our opinion, reinforces the idea that the minors' revelations were credible, and [therefore] the association's approach was officially rejected».
IT WAS NOT PREMATURE SEXUALITY
The orphanage of horrors was reported in an investigation by L'Espresso and subsequently closed. The Aibi association, which operates under the authorization of the Italian government, did not respond to our request for comment.
«A final observation», conclude the judges of the Grand Chamber, «must be made, in our opinion, regarding the consideration that the events were a “simple” phenomenon of precocious sexuality, due to the fact that the children live together in an orphanage. According to this point of view, consequently there was no need to investigate, since only the minors were responsible for the sexual contacts and no criminal liability could be attributed to them. First, we note once again that this was the theory supported by the association that acted as an intermediary in the adoption», highlight the judges of the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court, always referring to Aibi: «Second, there were reports, even in the first disclosures, of violent sexual contacts initiated by minors. In this regard, we must underline that also important international norms consider violence inflicted by peers as violence against minors and that in these cases the criminal liability does not lie with the violent children, but with those who have the task of supervising and caring for them».
POLICE REPORT
The prosecutor's office and the juvenile court, which had deemed the complaint of the three children credible, also established the full suitability of the adoptive parents, who, according to the Strasbourg Court, Aibi had defined as unsuitable. But as happened in Bulgaria, the Italian judiciary that deals with the behavior of adults has archived all the numerous complaints filed over the years against the Milanese association, for alleged irregularities in the adoption procedures .
The same police report that in Rome attested to the "three different signatures, all written by the same hand" ended up in the archives: they appear at the bottom of the report delivered to the juvenile court by the top management of Aibi, who at that time were acting before the judicial authority in their capacity as an entity authorized by the Italian government. This is the unusual reason why an ordinary public prosecutor requested and obtained the archiving: "The false signature on the report produced by Aibi to the Juvenile Court remains to be considered [...]. The only crime that can be configured in this sense, since it is a party act, is the falsity of a private document no longer provided for by law as a crime."