Ombudswoman: Prosecutor’s Office investigating several cases of violence in Patriarchate’s boarding school
Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria has stated that her body received information about investigations in the Patriarchate’s boarding school from the country’s Prosecutor’s Office.
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Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria has stated that the country’s Prosecutor’s Office is investigating several cases of violence in the Patriarchate’s Ninotsminda boarding school where top clerics have not allowed inspectors to conduct mandatory monitoring.
Archbishop Spiridon, who administers the boarding school with 56 children, has stated several times that he will not allow the public defender’s monitors into the building ‘because Lomjaria and her staff are supporting anti-Christian attitudes.’
Archbishop Spiridon says that the public defender and NGOs are 'dangerous for children.' Photo: reginfo.
Lomjaria says that the state agencies ‘have been indifferent to the problem and have done nothing’ to ensure the enforcement of law and the presence of inspectors in the facility.
She says that the investigations launched according to the testimony of a former beneficiary of the facility indicates ‘serious problems there and that the beneficiaries are unable to ask for help while they have to live at the boarding school.’
Lomjaria says that only one social worker has been allowed into the boarding school after ‘sharp statements’ from her office and the involvement of the UN.
However, the social worker is unable to conduct any monitoring because it is our job and she has no access to necessary documentation,” Lomjaria says.
Public Defender’s Statement on Ninotsminda Children's Boarding School https://t.co/PZ20PWSRMd
— Ombudsman of Georgia (@Ombudsman_Geo) May 19, 2021
She expressed the suspicion that after her employees enter the facility ‘the children may be under the serious influence of the facility leadership and it will be difficult to communicate with them in a proper way.’
Civic activists and NGOs, who protested the barring of monitors into the building on the Children’s International Day yesterday, have also condemned the presence of bishop Serapime Jojua at the boarding school yesterday who was accused of a sexual abuse of a minor several years ago.
Lomjaria and other NGOs say that all remaining boarding school must close in the country, like in most European states and they must be replaced by family-type facilities with fewer children.
Georgian civic activists and NGOs have plans to gather at the administration building of the government of Georgia at 6 p.m. today, on International Childrens’ Day, to protest the decision of the leadership of Ninotsminda boarding school in eastern Georgia not to allow inspectors, including the country’s ombudsperson, to carry out monitoring there.
Six children living in a boarding school run by the Georgian Patriarchate and which is suspected of inflicting physical and psychological violence on its wards say they would like to leave the institution ‘to live closer to Tbilisi’, the Agency for Social Care and Assistance for Victims of Trafficking said yesterday.
Civic activist Giga Makarashvili says that a law enforcer broke his hand during a rally at the country’s Prosecutor’s Office yesterday.
Sixteen children have expressed the desire to leave the Patriarchate’s Ninotsminda boarding school, the Agency for State Care and Assistance for the Victims of Human Trafficking has reported. The state agency, which entered the boarding school earlier this week, said that six children have already been placed in a different facility amid allegations of violence in the school.
Several minors from the Patriarchate’s boarding school in Ninotsminda have already been interrogated following allegations of violence in the school, reports the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (MIA).
UNICEF Georgia (United Children’s Emergency Fund) says it is ready to support the Georgian government in moving children from Ninotsminda boarding school to family and community-based care amidst allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
Civic activists have thrown hundreds of leaflets at MPs during a session in parliament with the caption ‘What is happening in the Ninotsminda boarding house?’