In 2007 a film crew travelled to Bulgaria to produce a documentary which shed a light on a culture where physically and mentally disabled children are institutionalized or ‘warehoused’ in appalling conditions, the country had the highest number of disabled children in institutions in Europe. The resulting program, Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children, aired on BBC 4 and resulted in a global outcry due to the shocking treatment of the children.
This follow up documentary Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children: Revisited was aired in 2009 and looks at what had changed in the intervening years to the children featured in the first film after political and social pressure placed on the country to make changes, particularly from MEP’s and the European Union.
Ultimately the crew found that huge improvements had been made to the way that the children featured were now living, although it is well worth noting that there were still thousands of other disabled children in the country still living in antiquated and underfunded facilities.
