Serbia's horrific institutions a relic of the past

Ann Curry • Profile

BELGRADE, Serbia - A generation ago, mentally disabled people were often quietly sent away to bleak  government institutions, left to live out their days on the isolated fringes of society.

But the scenes you are watching are not from that era, they're playing out now, day after day, halfway across the world.

Children and adults given up by their families. Languishing behind crumbling walls and rusted bars. 

Laurie Ahern: Those people are virtual prisoners, virtual prisoners there until they die.

Where a society's most helpless people are shunned and warehoused.

Ann Curry: She wasn't harming anyone, so why restrain her?

Tonight, an investigation that takes us inside a realm forgotten by time. To a country where being a mentally disabled child often means a life sentence in an institution: Serbia, once part of the eastern European country formerly known as Yugoslavia.

After a brutal civil war tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, Serbia emerged and soon drew more international attention as its president, Slobodan Milosevic, presided over a deadly government campaign to purge ethnic Albanians from the region.

NATO bombing led to the eventual withdrawal of Serbian forces. Milosevic died in prison as he stood trial for crimes against humanity.

Today, a new Serbia is emerging from the shadows of its past. The capital, Belgrade, is a city of colorful markets, thriving  plazas, and rich history. It is a resilient country moving forward.

But as we travel through the cities and back roads of Serbia, we discover a remnant of the country's past ...unchanged, and unknown, for decades.

And we learn of the fateful choices many parents here are often forced to make about their disabled children. Parents Like Dusica.

Nine years ago, she was a radiant expectant mother.

Dusica: I took it really well, and felt wonderful at that time. That was actually the most beautiful time of my life.

Video   Inside Serbia’s mental institutions, Part One NBC’s Ann Curry visits Serbia's mental institutions and learns how a society's most helpless people are shunned and warehoused. Dateline NBC

Ann: I can see there are tears in your eyes when you think of it. Why?

Dusica: Because we had - I mean we were expecting - a baby, we had wonderful, big plans, that later on, well, vanished.

Vanished because complications during birth left her son, Stefan, with cerebral palsy and severe blindness.

Now there was an agonizing choice to make: keep him at home for the rest of his life, or let him live out his days in an institution.

It was also the choice Srdjan, a sturdy, tough-minded truck driver, was forced to make soon after he got word that his first child, Uros, had Down Syndrome. The news overwhelmed him.

Srdjan: My feeling at that moment, I was completely drained, didn't speak.

Though the diagnoses were different, the advice from both of their doctors was the same. The children, they said, would be better off in mental institutions.

Ann: When the doctor suggested you could give up your child, what was your reaction?

Dusica: I was dumbfounded.  I was stunned that someone could even come up with the idea that I would want something like that.

But her doctor's advice is common here in Serbia. It is among the countries where disabilities still cause deep shame, and parents are urged to put mentally disabled newborns in remote government institutions. And with money tight and little government help at home, most parents hope the institutions are the best option for their children.

It's a painful decision that, for parents like Srdjan, is hard to face.

Ann Curry: And when you looked at your boy, what did you see?

Video   Inside Serbia’s mental institutions, Part Two One of the men in charge of Serbia's mental institutions shares a surprising revelation. Dateline NBC

Srdjan: No. I couldn't.

He accepted/took a doctor's advice and gave up his son to the state without ever laying eyes on him.

Ann Curry: You didn't look at him?

Srdjan: No.

Ann Curry: You never saw him?

Srdjan: No, I couldn't.

He's lived with this inner conflict for eleven years now. A lingering love. An unseen son never far from his mind. Eleven years. Where is his boy now? What is life like for him and thousands of other disabled children?  To find out, we would have to travel to the far reaches of Serbia . Get beyond the gates ...  And inside wards that few outsiders have ever seen.

Ann Curry: I can hear the children.

Nothing could prepare us for what we would find.

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