Lithuanian children ‘beaten up for being beautiful’

A LITHUANIAN official has claimed the children of immigrants from the country are being beaten up — for being too beautiful.

Rimante Salasevicuite who is the Eastern European nation’s Ombudsman for Children claimed the children now feel unsafe.

She made her conclusions after a visit to Ireland to study the conditions in which the 20-30,000 children live.

She will report her findings to the Lithuanian parliament next week.

“In one Irish town Lithuanian children are beaten only because they are more beautiful than Irish ones,” Ms Salasevicuite told Lietuvos Rytas.

She also claimed that at some schools, children are prevented from speaking Lithuanian even with their siblings.

Ms Salasevicuite said that after meetings with teachers and active members of the Irish Lithuanian community she had concluded that Lithuanian children were not considered the equals of Irish children. But she said parents were afraid to register complaints.

Irish Ambassador to Lithuania Donal Denham has contested the comments by Ms Salasevicuite asking her where she had sourced her information.

Arunas Teiserskis, director of the Lithuanian Association in Ireland, who met Ms Salasevicuite, said her comments had “over-hyped” the problem.

“Generally the atmosphere in Ireland is very welcoming. A lot of kids enjoy support in school, but there are isolated cases. There are members of society who might be abusive to foreign nationals but it is not just Lithuanians. Adults can hide their attitudes but children cannot,” he said.

He said some schools were working hard to encourage children to maintain their cultural identity and that the Lithuanian community holds weekend schools to allow them to use their language and learn cultural practices such as dancing. However, he called on Government to offer more support to groups in Irish society which are trying to bring foreign nationals into the communities.