Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

Children’s homes looking after youngsters who have been beaten and raped by their families are returning kids to their abusive parents because of coronavirus fears in their institutions.

Reports state that Portugal’s Commission for the Protection of Children and Youth at Risk have been told that some institutions have returned children to the homes they were rescued from because of fears for “public health” in the coronavirus pandemic.

Local newspaper ‘Correio da Manha’ report the Salesianos de Mirandela institute in the Vila Real district of northern Portugal had returned the children living there, around four dozen youngsters, to the homes which the justice system had removed them from.

The report states other institutions in Portugal caring for mistreated youngsters have also returned them to their homes without court orders as they said public health was at risk.

Correio da Manha report that many of the children returned to the homes where they had been “beaten, raped or neglected”.

The reports state that the document informing the commission of Salesianos de Mirandel’s decision was dated before Portugal declared a state of emergency on 19th March but named the decision as a preventative measure in the face of the COIVD-19 pandemic.

The institute reportedly did not ask permission to do so and the document, which was also filed with the juvenile courts in the district, simply says they were returned to the homes they had left to be protected.

Salesianos de Mirandela reportedly said they had given “training” to the families the children were being returned to, with the training carried out by phone, as well as handing out a pamphlet on how to look after children during isolation.

The document, reportedly signed by priest Joao de Brito Carvalho, the director of the institution on 13th March, said that the measure was the only way to protect the youngsters and employees of the institution.

The Salesians of Don Bosco to whom the institute belongs is a Catholic congregation focused on charity work “towards the young, especially the poor, and the education of boys to the priesthood” according to its charter.

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