Forced to convert to Islam and harassed: a girl adopted by Chechens in Moscow complained to the police

A 14-year-old schoolgirl contacted the Losinoostrovsky district police department

A 14-year-old pupil from a foster family contacted the Losinoostrovsky district police department in Moscow. The girl reported cruel treatment by her stepparents, Chechens by nationality. Among the complaints, she mentioned sexual violence and inducement to someone else’s faith.

The first person to learn about violence from foster parents was the family and childhood adviser of the district guardianship office. The orphan complained that she was scared to live in a Chechen family – she was poorly fed, insulted and beaten. In addition, her Muslim adoptive parents force her to perform prayers and raise her in a different faith, although she considers herself Orthodox.

It is known that the girl has been living in a foster family for eight years. She claims that all this time her Muslim father harassed her as soon as her mother left home. In addition to the girl, the family of natives from Chechnya is raising three more children: two are adopted and one is their own. According to her, there is a clear division in the family. They give their own the best, but strangers are underfed and beaten.

MK asked the district department of guardianship and trusteeship to comment on the situation. They assured us that previously they had no complaints about the Chechen family that took in the children. The police have the same information: the family did not come into their field of vision. But the teenager’s accusations are so serious that the Investigative Committee for the Babushkinsky District is now looking into her case.

Can children slander their parents? Such situations happen, and both adoptive and natural parents can be slandered. MK once wrote about a 15-year-old girl who demanded that she be taken away from her mother and father, who allegedly treated her cruelly. Which is what was done.

However, the mother said that, having entered puberty, her daughter went into all serious troubles. She would arrive late, smelling of alcohol, and grown men would call her on the phone. Her parents forbade her to go outside. Then the daughter wrote a complaint against them to guardianship, managed to send them to a shelter, where she continued her passion for alcohol and the opposite sex, without the supervision of her adoptive mother.

“Children often use such techniques as manipulation, especially from orphanages,” social orphanhood specialist Alexander Gezalov comments on the situation to MK. – Orphans want to get what they want – in an orphanage this is a constant process. In a family this becomes more and more difficult. Parents may require something specific: doing homework, coming home on time. And to violate these requirements, children report harassment.

What is important here is whether the child has developed an attachment to his adoptive parents? To dad, specifically. It usually happens that attachment is established to one of the parents. Psychological compatibility is a rather delicate point. It is very important to understand all the details here, because the family faces a criminal case. In addition, this is a blow to the reputation of foster families. I wouldn’t want innocent people to get hurt.”

“Situations when adopted children complain about their stepparents are not so rare,” Viktor Levin, head of the legal service for helping orphans, shares his experience. – Adopted children are prone to fantasizing. In my practice, there was a case when a boy complained about the harassment of his adoptive father.

During the investigation, the man had other testimony. They did not believe the adoptive father and opened a criminal case against him. However, the man’s correctness was confirmed by a psychological and psychiatric examination. It includes a sufficient number of tests for the tendency to fantasize.

As for being raised in another faith, according to Islamic law, an orphan child has the right to choose his own religion. If the parents are devout Muslims, then they adhere to this postulate, one of the imams told us.