A foster mother accused of chaining up her eight-year-old son and keeping him at home as a prisoner has been charged with child abuse and torture in Ukraine.
School principal Anna Zhitnik, 56, was arrested after police raided her flat in Dnipro, central Ukraine, following a tip-off from her neighbours.
After breaking into the apartment, officers discovered Zhitnik’s adoptive son chained to an armchair, reports said.
The boy, named as Stas, was sitting on the floor, blindfolded, with his arms and legs tied up. His mouth was sealed with duct tape, police said.
A handmade collar was wrapped around Stas’s neck and attached to a metal chain, the other edge of which was fixed to the armchair.
Shocked police officers freed the boy and took him to a hospital for medical examinations before finding Zhitnik at work and detaining her.
Zhitnik, who adopted four children in total, had been considered as a caring parent by her neighbours.
But their opinion drastically changed after the children shared details of their family’s day-to-day life with them.
Tatiana, a woman next door said to local media: ‘The kids showed us a picture of Stas taken on their mobile phone.
‘His wrists and lower legs were tied up with duct tape.
‘The kids said their mother kept Stas constantly chained up as a punishment for speaking loudly. We called the police.’
Law enforcement immediately took measures. Stas and his adoptive siblings, aged four, six and 13, were taken away from the mother and placed in a facility for social and psychological rehabilitation.
Maria Atroshkina, a psychologist who is working with the kids said: ‘These children were regularly abused by their foster mother.
‘She used coarse language to insult them and chained them up for ‘hopping around and touching her things’.
‘The mother also had a “special stick” to beat them up.
‘The kids are very attached to each other. They constantly hug and kiss each other. They are very affectionate.
‘None of them wants to reunite with the mother. They are afraid of her.’
At a court hearing on August 27, Anna Zhitnik was charged with child abuse, torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty and parental neglect. She was put under house arrest for two months and faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
Prosecutor Andriy Krasikov from Dnipro Prosecutor’s Office said: ‘The suspect’s 13-year-old daughter Mira witnessed tortures and testified that it was her mother who chained the boy to the armchair.
‘According to her, Zhitnik chained Stas up every day before going to work.
‘The boy’s body is covered with bruises inflicted by Zhitnik, according to him and the witness.’
However, Zhitnik denies her guilt saying: ‘I am not guilty. I’ve done a lot for these children preventing them from hurting themselves.
‘May they take them away from me, I don’t mind.’
It is believed Zhitnik adopted the kids to receive 15,000 hryvnias (about £500) of child benefits per month. She has already been deprived of her parental rights, local media report.
The investigation continues.
