The Dacha Operation: How People in PIUs are Used as Slave Labor
In the Jewish Autonomous Region, the director of the Birobidzhan psychoneurological boarding school (PNI) was charged with abuse of power - he forced his wards to build a dacha. Experts emphasize that labor exploitation is the norm for many boarding schools. This is facilitated by conflicts of interest, when the director of the boarding school is also the guardian of its residents, and by internal regulations, which are often based on outdated wording. How to stop the labor exploitation of wards of psychoneurological boarding schools - "Izvestiya" studied.
What the director of the psychiatric boarding school is accused of
Director of the boarding school Yevgeny Yezhele is charged under paragraph "f" of part 3 of article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Exceeding official powers out of selfish or other personal interest"). The Investigative Committee for Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Region reports that from 2022 to 2024 he attracted wards of the boarding school recognized as incapacitated and suffering from mental illnesses to the construction of his summer house in Birobidzhan.
Yevgeny Yezhelia has been detained. He faces imprisonment for three to 10 years.
As reported to "Izvestia" in the Investigative Committee for EAO and Khabarovsk region, Eugene Yezhelia involved three residents of the boarding school in the construction of his dacha.
What is known about the boarding school in Birobidzhan
Natalia Kandelia, acting head of the Department of Social Protection of the EAD, refused to comment to Izvestia on what happened until the investigation is over. Yevgeny Yezheli's dismissal was also not reported.
He has been working in the PNI since 2020. One of his predecessors is still in prison: Vasily Bondaruk, who ran the orphanage from 2000 to 2012, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for violent acts of a sexual nature against PNI wards. One part of the charges against him also concerned labor exploitation - in 2011, the labor of incapacitated citizens was used on their personal garden plot. They were paid 100 rubles a day for hard physical work, and sometimes they were given cookies and cigarettes instead of money.
According to Izvestia, as of the summer of 2024, 548 people lived in the Birobidzhan psycho-internat. There were no serious complaints about the institution - the territory is green and well-groomed, there are places for classes, tennis tables, greenhouses, vegetable garden, subsidiary farming. There the residents of PNI work in the summer time. The institution's website claims that agricultural work is done by the wards "who are allowed labor therapy according to the medical report," and the produce of the subsidiary farm is used to improve the nutrition of the residents of the orphanage.
The staff of the boarding school interviewed by Izvestiya did not answer questions about Yevgeny Yezhele and the situation in the boarding school.
Exploited almost everywhere
Alexander Gaganov, a lawyer of the People's Front's project "Region of Care", notes that labor exploitation is present in many boarding schools.
-"A classic of the genre is washing floors 'for a candy bar' or a 'cigarette', 'helping' to care for residents in the mercy ward: taking out a vessel, changing diapers, bed linen, cleaning the territory, unloading work, any other simple physical labor," he told Izvestia. - In part, this practice compensates for the shortage of staff in PNIs. If a service recipient refuses to work, disloyal attitude on the part of the boarding school administration is assured.
From time to time, incidents are reported in the media: in 2017, residents of Buturlinsky PNI in the Nizhny Novgorod region were forced to unload coal cars for a pack of cigarettes, and in Novoaltaysk, wards of the boarding school were sent to the homestead plots of a PNI employee. In 2019, the director of the Sujan boarding school in the Kursk region became the subject of criminal cases because he forced disabled people to do unpaid auxiliary labor in the homes of acquaintances.
- The "Region of Care" project is also aware of other cases when human rights organizations drew the attention of supervisory authorities to slave labor in boarding schools: residents were used in construction work and on farms without registration of labor relations and wages, - continues Alexander Gaganov. - Residents were afraid to refuse to participate in the work, as they could be punished: isolation, restriction in walks and purchase of goods for their own needs, humiliation of human dignity.
According to him, very often a direct indication of the possibility to engage recipients of services in labor free of charge is stipulated in the Internal Regulations for the recipients of social services (IRS). Such a document should be in every PSR, although, notes Alexander Gaganov, it is not available on the website of the Birobidzhan psycho-internat.
- The rules of one of the PSNIs say: "Residents of the institution in accordance with the labor recommendation of the ITU or (and) the conclusion of the doctor of the boarding school take part in self-care work (cleaning of the premises and the surrounding area) on a gratuitous basis. This wording is incorrect, as it does not indicate the free will of the residents themselves, - emphasizes the lawyer. - But almost verbatim the same wording is found in the TACs of boarding schools in Moscow, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Yaroslavl regions, Krasnodar, Stavropol, Khabarovsk territories, Karachay-Cherkess Republic.
According to him, this phrase is from paragraph 21 of the 1978 Regulations on the residential home for the elderly and disabled, which became invalid in 2018. Moreover, the boarding homes omitted the second part of this paragraph, which implies payment for this work.
Ekaterina Kantinova, director of the ANO "Service for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Mental Disorders, Orphans and Children without Parental Care" (working in Nizhny Novgorod region), emphasizes that labor exploitation in PNI can be quite difficult to confirm, because there is often no independent assessment of the living conditions of the wards and sufficient control over such cases. The Rights Protection Service was established in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast precisely to identify such situations - its employees regularly visit the penitentiary institutions for inspections.
-In June 2022, in one of the private boarding schools in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, the fact of labor exploitation of residents was proved," says an interlocutor of Izvestiya. - About 10 people washed dishes for free in the kitchen of the institution and worked in the auxiliary farm of the boarding school. We found this out during a visit to the institution, talking to the residents, and appealed to the prosecutor's office. As a result, the residents were officially employed and were paid compensation for the period when they worked without remuneration.
According to her, very many residents in PNI could work, but, according to Rostrud's data for 2019, only 2% of residents in psychoneurological boarding schools are officially employed.
Nevertheless, now the situation has begun to change a little, says Anna Bitova, chairman of the board of the Alliance "The Value of Everyone" and the charitable organization "Center for Therapeutic Pedagogy". Boarding schools have started to employ their wards on a half- or quarter-time basis more often.
- Byand large, this is a way out, when a person learns to work, gradually understand labor relations," Anna Bitova told Izvestia. - After a few years, he has a chance to pass a commission to leave the PNI or, at least, to improve his legal status, to get rid of incapacity.
How to distinguish exploitation from therapy
Ekaterina Kantinova notes that labor rehabilitation exists only within the framework of occupational therapy, but for this purpose an employment plan must be developed taking into account the state of health of the person. Institutions must also have a special worker, a labor instructor, under whose supervision rehabilitation takes place. Alexander Gaganov notes that, judging by the open data from the website of the Birobidzhan Penitentiary, there is no such employee in this institution, but there are stories about occupational therapy in the Penitentiary - in October 2024, the wards harvested crops "almost on an industrial scale.
- If a resident works on a homestead plot and grows vegetables for himself, then cooks food from them, makes preparations for himself for the winter, this is not labor exploitation, it is employment at will. And if vegetables are grown for the institution and many residents work on the garden plot, for example, for a certain number of hours every day - this is labor, - explains Ekaterina Kantinova.
Nevertheless, it is very difficult to understand in absentia whether occupational therapy is being practiced by the wards of PNI or whether it is exploitation. Only immersion in the situation and personal communication will help to understand the situation.
It is even more difficult to distinguish between labor exploitation and internal volunteering. Volunteer work should be voluntary and unpaid. In PNI, it often consists in helping the wards of weaker service recipients. Although even cleaning the territory or unloading goods some boarding schools consider volunteering, says Alexander Gaganov. And often the management of the boarding school claims that the ward "wants to help himself", notes Svetlana Mamonova, director of external relations of the charity organization "Perspectives".
- Here it is very important to understand - if he wakes up in the morning and doesn't want to work, will there be any reaction from the prosecution or not, or will this be accepted in the boarding school? There is this very fine line here," she told Izvestia. - It is very important to keep track of when a person cannot say no and does something out of fear.
In the situation with the Birobidzhansky PNI, Alexander Gaganov continues, a clear line between lawful forms of employment and unlawful can be traced - after all, the work was aimed at satisfying the personal needs of the director of the PNI.
How to solve the problem
An important role in identifying violations is played by the openness of the PNI for volunteers. Often they are the ones who notice violations related to the use of labor of service recipients on unfair terms, says Alexander Gaganov.
Another possible control mechanism is the so-called distributed guardianship. At present, the guardian of a ward of the boarding school is the director of the institution, and in case of violations in the boarding school, he has to control himself. Distributed guardianship would allow for the appointment of an "external" guardian for incapacitated citizens living in a PNI. However, the bill on distributed guardianship, approved in first reading back in 2016, was finally rejected by the State Duma last week. Now this prospect has been pushed back indefinitely, says Gaganov.
Svetlana Mamonova believes that the guardianship authorities could control the actions of the guardian - director of the PNI, but, as practice shows, they do not do it as diligently as in relation to guardians - individuals.
-The system is also detrimental because of the huge number of people living in institutions: 600-1000 people in megacities and 200-300 in small towns," says the Izvestia interviewee. - We need a transition to another level of institutions. There will still be boarding schools, but they should be small-scale, apartment-type, with a maximum of 20-30 people.
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