In a village near Zhitomir, three children were taken from their family because their Rodnover parents forbade them to eat meat.
In the village of Buki, in the suburbs of Zhitomir, the juvenile justice system took away three children from a Rodnover family. The children themselves are healthy and do not lag behind in development, but officials are sure that they are not eating enough. After all, their parents, who live according to the customs of the Rodnoverie community, do not feed them meat and fish, but also allow them to go out alone.
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This was reported by the local website “Zhitomir Info” with reference to a TSN story, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The parents call themselves Rodnovers, they profess an ancient Slavic cult, and they also decided not to eat meat at all, and at the same time not to feed meat to their three children - Bogdan, Angelina and Lev.
“This is buckwheat with herbs and salad - cucumbers, tomatoes and butter,” says Svyatozara Batenkova. Adults do not consider the lack of meat in the diet of three children to be a problem. “If the result is that the child is active, healthy, and not susceptible to disease, then the nutrition is worth it,” says the children’s mother.
However, the village is convinced that the children are malnourished. A family of pagans settled in Buki five years ago, and since then, neighbors say, hungry children have constantly come to their yards. “Even before my husband they came: uncle, let me eat. I brought out the chicken salad myself, and they ate it,” says one of the villagers.
People complained to the village council. There they investigated the situation and decided to take the kids to the shelter. “The eldest girl goes to the Korchatsky school just to eat,” says Teterevsky village chairman Valentina Ilnitskaya.
Now Bogdan, Angelina and Lev are getting used to life in the shelter. “Okay, but not like being at home with my parents. Here they swear, they smoke, and they don’t let them out on the street very often,” says the daughter of pagan-vegans Bogdana Batenkova.
Children in the orphanage eat the same as everyone else; there is simply no separate menu for vegetarians. “What the state has provided for is what it is,” says Ruslan Selyuchenko, teacher-methodologist at the Solnechny Dom children’s rehabilitation center. The children at the center are described as well-groomed and healthy. “We see such people for the first time,” admits psychologist Alla Boluy.
The mother of Svyatozar Batenkov’s children is pregnant with her fourth child. She is sure that her children eat everything they need.
The children will spend the next four months in a rehabilitation center. Whether the children will be left in the family will be decided by the court. The parents are planning to file a counterclaim against social services. Lawyers believe they have every reason to win the case.
“I have not found any cases where parental rights would be deprived for the fact that they feed their children differently than is customary in Ukraine. The Children’s Service must find out whether such a diet, such traditions and such a child’s development are really negative for him,” says lawyer Inna Rudnik.
At the same time, Zhytomyr doctors claim that in many countries around the world, vegetarianism for children is allegedly prohibited, and in Italy they are even preparing a law that provides for prison sentences for those who prohibit children from eating meat.
“If a child does not take essential amino acids, these are developmental problems - the physical and mental development of the child,” says Zhytomyr pediatrician Anna Gorban.
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