Good news stories aren’t so frequent here in the Caucasus region, so when they do come along, they’re worth celebrating. Last year, Armenian environmental activist Mariam Sukhudyan was facing a possible five-year prison sentence for slander after exposing alleged abuse at a children’s home. The charges were finally dropped a few weeks ago, and in another welcome development, Sukhudyan and her colleagues won first prize at the Social Innovation Camp event here in Tbilisi last weekend with their web project aimed at combatting ecological damage to forests.Here's more on the scandal caused by the prosecution of Sukhudyan, from a piece I wrote for The Moscow Times recently:
A young activist working as a volunteer at a residential school for orphans and children with mental disabilities exposes allegations of physical and sexual abuse. A nationwide scandal follows, with calls for a full investigation. What happens next? No, the whistleblower isn’t praised, but charged with slander and threatened with five years in prison.
That was the situation in Armenia last year, when activist Mariam Sukhudyan took the allegations of child abuse to the national media. But this month, after a long campaign, justice finally triumphed, and Sukhudyan was vindicated. The charges were dropped and a prosecution was launched against a former teacher.
A few months ago, I visited the school – an old Soviet institution on a windswept hilltop outside the capital, Yerevan - to find out what had happened there. The staff, desperate to prove that no abuse took place, gave me a guided tour and insisted that Sukhudyan and other activists who also worked as volunteers were deluded. “Because they were so young and inexperienced, they didn’t understand that every child here has mental disabilities and very active imaginations,” argued one staff member. Disturbing video testimony from one of the children told a different story, however.
The scandal exposed the grim conditions in some of Armenia’s ageing juvenile institutions, which child welfare experts believe should be transformed or shut down. The government has been trying to reform, but not fast enough. Sukhudyan, who is also a committed environmental activist, told me that she felt she had to speak out on behalf of those who could not. This view was echoed by the United States ambassador to Yerevan, who recently presented her with the embassy’s 2010 ‘Woman of Courage’ award, and spoke of her “determination to act in order to right a wrong, in spite of the personal sacrifices it entailed”.
Sukhudyan hopes that the case against her has helped to open up a closed system to public scrutiny. “We can already see some changes,” she said. “Interest and attention towards children in special schools has considerably grown, people are more informed about the situation.” But although she no longer faces a jail sentence, it’s clear that those in power still need to do more to protect those who can’t protect themselves.
A young activist working as a volunteer at a residential school for orphans and children with mental disabilities exposes allegations of physical and sexual abuse. A nationwide scandal follows, with calls for a full investigation. What happens next? No, the whistleblower isn’t praised, but charged with slander and threatened with five years in prison.
That was the situation in Armenia last year, when activist Mariam Sukhudyan took the allegations of child abuse to the national media. But this month, after a long campaign, justice finally triumphed, and Sukhudyan was vindicated. The charges were dropped and a prosecution was launched against a former teacher.
A few months ago, I visited the school – an old Soviet institution on a windswept hilltop outside the capital, Yerevan - to find out what had happened there. The staff, desperate to prove that no abuse took place, gave me a guided tour and insisted that Sukhudyan and other activists who also worked as volunteers were deluded. “Because they were so young and inexperienced, they didn’t understand that every child here has mental disabilities and very active imaginations,” argued one staff member. Disturbing video testimony from one of the children told a different story, however.
The scandal exposed the grim conditions in some of Armenia’s ageing juvenile institutions, which child welfare experts believe should be transformed or shut down. The government has been trying to reform, but not fast enough. Sukhudyan, who is also a committed environmental activist, told me that she felt she had to speak out on behalf of those who could not. This view was echoed by the United States ambassador to Yerevan, who recently presented her with the embassy’s 2010 ‘Woman of Courage’ award, and spoke of her “determination to act in order to right a wrong, in spite of the personal sacrifices it entailed”.
Sukhudyan hopes that the case against her has helped to open up a closed system to public scrutiny. “We can already see some changes,” she said. “Interest and attention towards children in special schools has considerably grown, people are more informed about the situation.” But although she no longer faces a jail sentence, it’s clear that those in power still need to do more to protect those who can’t protect themselves.
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