Thomson Reuters Foundation: Model Natalia Vodianova gets personal in bid to save disabled children from orphanages
19 October 2018
Supermodel Natalia Vodianova is best known for strutting down catwalks but she is most proud of her behind-the-scenes work – such as campaigning to keep disabled children out of orphanages as efforts mount to stop institutionalising children.
Vodianova said she was acutely aware of the issues faced by families with disabled children after growing up with her half-sister Oksana who was born with cerebral palsy and autism.
When Oksana was born, nurses at the hospital suggested her mother put her into an orphanage and have “another healthy child” – while Vodianova said she was bullied by other children at school for having a disabled sister.
"The rule has been that for many years children with special needs, with disabilities, are abandoned by their families," Vodianova, 36, once nicknamed Supernova, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
You can’t blame the family. The system has not been adapted for a family to raise a child with special needs.
The non-government organisation Disability Rights International (DRI) said the institutionalisation of children with disabilities is a worldwide problem and it has documented abuses against children in 25 countries.
Read full interview by Lee Mannion on Thomson Reuters Foundation website.