Bucharest, 19th April 2016. Today, the European Center for the Rights of Children with Disabilities (CEDCD) notified the National Council for Combating Discrimination in the case of a 15 year old girl, victim of humiliating treatments at the Secondary School Ghiță Mocanu in Onești, Bacău County.
Denisa was diagnosed with hypoacusis and a mild form of intellectual disability. The girl has an accentuated disability degree and an educational orientation certificate issued by CJRAE Bacău for education in mass schools, grades VI-VIII, having the right to an adapted curriculum and a support teacher.
Through the mighty efforts of her parents, Denisa graduated from the grades 1-4 in a mass school, but since the 5th grade, the class teacher has put pressure on her parents to withdraw the child from school. Beyond the constant acts of marginalization, the threat to repeat the year and the categorical refusal to adapt her school curriculum according to the current legal provisions, the class teacher systematically attempted to bring the parents together in order to demand Denisa’s exclusion from school.
Although the school management attempted to mitigate the conflict, the class teacher, along with the mother of a pupil from Denisa’s class, collected signatures to exclude the girl from school. Moreover, the class teacher believes that Denisa is “a child that should stay at home and play with dolls”, and a mother of a pupil brought by CEDCD in front of the National Council for Combating Discrimination believes that Denisa is a hindrance in the pupil’s study process for the national examination at the end of the 8th grade. One of her statements was: “If you have a basket with good apples and you add a rotten one, won’t it spoil the others?”
Currently, Denisa continues to go to class at Ghiță Mocanu School, in Onești, and the discriminatory and humiliating attitude of her class teacher and the aforementioned mother continues. In spite of the good relationships in the past, Denisa is now isolated from her classmates, sitting alone in the last desk, as a result of the conflict between her family and her class teacher, which made them believe that there is a fundamental difference between them, based on her disability.
“Unfortunately, the dramatic case of Denisa is very familiar to us, but two things are of fundamental concern: on the one hand, the fact that in spite of legal provisions and numerous legal proceedings initiated by our organization, the Ministry of Education stubbornly refuses to take measures of discrimination prevention and inclusion for children with disabilities. On the other hand, we are particularly concerned over the aggressiveness of the pupils’ parents, who easily choose to discriminate and incite to discrimination against children with disabilities. Therefore, our organization has decided that such attitudes can no longer be tolerated and parents who treat children in such a manner are brought in front of competent courts, along with teachers”, states Mădălina TURZA, CEDCD president.
Contact person:
Madalina TURZA
Email: madalina.turza@cedcd.ro
Mob: 0737545955
Fax: 021/7952465
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