10-Year-Old Child in Gyumri Has Not Attended School for 7 Months, Severely Malnourished, Human Rights Defender Alerts

A 10-year-old child in Gyumri has not attended school for 7 months and has been under the care of his father, as the mother’s fight to take custody of the child has been in vain. This alarming situation has been reported by human rights defender Zarouhi Hovhannisyan.

“The child has exclusively played mobile games, has not slept through the night, and only managed to close his eyes for a few hours at dawn. He has not received normal food, subsisting instead on chips and candies, and drinking Coca-Cola or similar beverages. He came to me extremely malnourished and with serious psychological issues. With each case I work on, I feel that it can’t get any worse, that I won’t encounter an equally terrible parent or a greater indifference from society and especially state bodies. However, each new case continues to shock me,” wrote the human rights defender.

“Where are the state bodies? What are they occupied with? A child, like a light, has been brought to such an extreme situation,” she added.