Romania disabled orphans 'abused'
Romania's institutions are a legacy of ex-leader Ceausescu's regime
A US lobby group has accused Romania of keeping children with mental disabilities in filthy and degrading conditions in adult institutions.
Mental Disability Rights International said it found children covered in faeces and permanently restrained, during an 18-month investigation.
The group is urging the EU to put pressure on Romania to take action.
The report, released on Wednesday, comes as Romania waits to hear whether it will be allowed to join the EU.
EU commissioners are due to decide next week whether Romania has completed the necessary reforms to qualify for membership.
The MDRI report said many of the children were tied to beds, some bound tightly with sheets, with open wounds and bed sores, malnourished and near death.
"We found teenagers so emaciated they looked like they were three or four years old," the report said. "Their spindly arms and legs were twisted into contorted positions from disuse and atrophy."
Karen Green McGowan, a nurse who works with disabled people, says she saw children "who were fed on their back, were 20% of the weight they should have been, and were emotionally deprived".
"The thing that really makes me angry is that these were normal infants that were becoming disabled because of the system," she told the AFP news agency.
A recent law bans the placement of young children in institutions, but does not apply to children with "severe disabilities" who end up in institutions.
A Romanian government official said the most serious problems should be resolved by the end of the year.
Abuse of the mentally ill in Romania was first exposed in 1989 after the fall of the communist leader, Nicolae Ceausescu.
He banned birth control in 1967, leading to a wave of abandoned children who ended up in underfunded state institutions.
