LIVING
2-year-old banned from nursery because her deformed skull is too scary
By Hannah Frishberg
September 26, 2019 | 10:15am | Updated
CEN
No deformities allowed.
That was the message sent to the parents of 2-year-old Sofya Zakharova when they tried to enroll the tot in a nursery.
“‘First, you need to arrange an operation so she can go to nursery school like an ordinary child,'” her mother, Svetlana Zakharova, claims she was told by nursery staff, according to Metro. Her daughter has a skull deformity that makes her forehead wider than normal, and her fingers and toes are also fused together. A sweet video of Sofya and her mom shows the child laughing and playing with watercolors like any happy kid — just one who appears a bit different physically.
Sofya lives in the Russian village of Alatany in the Bashkortostan region with her mom, her dad, Rasul, and both sets of grandparents. Their home has no heat, running water, gas or stove. Her parents receive no disability help from the government, although a local charity called Rainbow Goodness helped pressure the school to accept Sofya — to no avail.
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“They have such a catastrophe here,” says grandfather Sergei Mikhailov. “They said they would do the operation, but then were silent about this.”
Local politicians have recently become involved in the family’s plight.
“I understand that if it were not for the intervention of the charitable foundation, there would have been no meetings on this and no relocation,” says Radiy Khabirov, head of the Republic of Bashkortostan. “It’s already clear that the rights of the child and parents are violated, and there will now be an appropriate legal assessment.”
