(31 Oct 1996) Farsi/Nat
In some of the most disturbing pictures to come out of Iran in recent years, APTV reveals the suffering inflicted on children kept like prisoners in a mental asylum outside Tehran.
Tied up and manacled to their beds, 400 children are kept in inhumane conditions which are reminiscent of the Romanian AIDS orphanages which shocked the world.
Around a quarter of the children have been abandoned by their parents, too embarrassed to keep their socially unacceptable mentally handicapped babies.
Wide eyed and staring hopelessly, this boy is kept tied to a bed day and night at the Hazrat Ali rehabilitation centre.
These harrowing images are part of everyday life in this centre which dedicates itself to providing for mentally disabled children between the ages of eight and 15.
Authorities say the children have to be kept tied down because they are violent and aggressive.
They say that if the children were not restrained they would injure each by fighting and biting each other.
They are forced to sleep, eat and even washed down while strapped to the bars of their miserable beds.
In some cases they even sleep in their own excrement, unable to make a trip to the toilet.
The stench is overpowering to the first time visitor from the outside. Urine, faeces and chlorine fight with each other to dominate the senses.
There is virtually nothing in the way of entertainment.
No television, no games - only the occasional walk outside in the grounds.
Nobody leaves - these children have been abandoned to the mercies of a sickeningly inadequate system.
There is no attempt to educate the children.
There are 40 such centres in the country.
They are government run and rely heavily on voluntary donations from outside, and one consultant there says it is this which allows them to remain open.
SOUNDBITE: Farsi
"If it was not for the help of the ordinary people, these centres would not function. It is the help of the people which has kept these centres going. And the people are giving a great deal of help."
SUPER CAPTION: Doctor Saheb Jamm, Consultant
It is hard to imagine anyone being proud of the conditions the children are kept in here.
Once a week only, the children are given a wash - but they are still kept chained up.
Faeces lie on the floor, with no-one to wash them away.
The asylum is infested by cockroaches, with no evidence of anything being done to prevent their spread.
Drugs and pills are administered freely - seemingly to keep the children quiet.
However, the director of the asylum is proud of its record.
SOUNDBITE: Farsi
"The death rate amongst these children has been lowered to only one and a half in every 300 kids. This is very low by international standards and shows that we are providing proper service."
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Ahmad Amiri, Director
Not all the children are tied up. Some are allowed to roam the corridors - stark naked and in a desperate state.
The nurses here are paid 15-thousand tomans a week - around eight U-S dollars.
Their low pay means few have had any more than the most basic of medical training.
But some nurses say it is an honour to look after the children and regret tying them up.
SOUNDBITE: Farsi
"God is my witness! I don't want to tie them up. But if I don't then they will bite and harm each other. I have to tie them up. I don't want to."
SUPER CAPTION: Fatemeh Alipoor, Nurse
Some of these children are kept in isolation wards. They spend their days utterly alone, strapped to metal bars with an empty life and a bleak future.
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