All news
Russian woman gives birth at Antalya airport and leaves baby in toilet
Russian Ekaterina B. abandoned her baby in the bathroom at Antalya airport in Turkey after giving birth and tried to escape to Russia, local TV channel T24 reported. According to it, the girl is 28 years old. At the same time, the Russian Consulate General reported that she was born in 2006, that is, under 18 years old.
"On the evening of October 13, a janitor found a newborn baby in a toilet for the disabled. During the investigation, it turned out that the girl had abandoned him there 12 minutes before the child was found," the channel reports.
Leaving the baby behind, the girl and her mother Elena B. quickly went to the passport office, completed the necessary formalities and left the country. But the Turkish police detained the women before they had time to fly to Moscow. They were detained in the waiting room.
The child survived and was handed over to doctors who provided first aid. The baby is currently hospitalized and will remain there until his condition stabilizes. According to the Russian Consulate General, his life was not in danger.
The young mother was also taken to the hospital. She was given medical assistance and then taken to the police station. A criminal case was opened against Ekaterina for "creating a threat to a child."
During interrogation, the girl said: “I didn’t know I was pregnant.”
On the evening of October 14, Ekaterina was taken to court and arrested for the duration of the investigation. A video of the girl being dragged down the street by a policewoman in Turkey shows her crying.
As reported by the SHOT channel, Ekaterina lives in Elektrostal near Moscow. One girl got pregnant during the Lunar New Year, but was "overweight" and had no idea about her condition. I flew to Turkey with my mother on vacation, and on the way back to the airport my stomach hurt, I went to the bathroom and gave birth.
"Katya and her mother claim that they only found out about their pregnancy at the airport when they were returning to Moscow. <...> They had not planned to transport the newborns and decided to simply get rid of them.", written as SHOT.
The alleged father of the child is a university student living in Noginsk. He did not even know about his loved one's situation.
At the same time, the Redovka channel suggested that the girl was advised to take the child away from her mother.
According to the channel, "the woman received an offer from Elena's mother to cruelly get rid of the child. She also appeared in the dock."
In Russia, the media regularly reports cases of women leaving their newborn babies unattended in bathrooms, forests, or dumping them in cesspools, garbage chutes, or trash cans in yards. Experts believe that this is due to the mother's desire not only to abandon an unwanted child, but also to completely hide the pregnancy.
"This explains the mother's reluctance to allow even the slightest disclosure of information about the fact that she gave birth and abandoned the child. Since this is a socially condemned phenomenon, women try to completely erase the fact of the birth of a child from their memory, including their own," explained Irina Volynets, director of the Department of Children's Rights of the Republic of Tatarstan.
However, there is no punishment for officially abandoning a child. After giving birth, women simply refuse to leave the maternity hospital with the newborn and sign a consent form for adoption. However, some mothers run away at this stage.
"They go out the front door to smoke," said Alexandra Marova, director of the Social Fund for the Protection of Orphans and an expert at the People's Front. "But no one sees them," he said.
In this case, a neglect report will be filed against the child and efforts will be made to place the child in another home.
Despite the abandonment of the child, she remains the biological mother until the child is adopted or turns 18 (for life in the case of a disabled child). For this reason, some women are hospitalized in maternity hospitals with forged documents or no documents at all.
In addition, according to Volynets, the abandonment of children is influenced by the strong stratification between the rich and the poor in Russian society. "Not all parents are sure that their children will be no worse than others. And this can ultimately lead to abandonment of the child," the ombudsman noted.