Mother who treated her daughter as a cat

The child, Datse, who acted like a cat. Photo: Ministry of the Interior.

This is a story from Russia, specifically a town 80 miles north of Moscow called Taldom. A girl, Datse, aged six was living with an adult man and woman. It is believed that the woman is the child's mother. The mother appears to be obsessed with neo-Nazi ideology. There are pictures of her performing the Nazi salute. All three lived in a disgusting and filthy apartment with 19 domestic cats.

 Mother who treated her daughter as a cat. Photo: East2West

The child apparently moved around the apartment on all fours, responded to the call "kitty kitty" and ate cat food. She has an older sister aged 12 who can't remember going to school. She had difficulty walking and doesn't know how to speak properly.

The girl looks as if she is about three years old, half her real age. It appears that the police stumbled upon this disastrous scene when they spotted what they believed was a suspicious man. When the man saw the police he tried to hide from them and entered a house located in Saltykov-Shchedrin Street. The police followed him into the house where they discovered the distressing scene.

 Mother who treated her daughter as a cat. Photo: Ministry of Internal Affairs

The man apparently was born in 1955 and the woman was born in 1986. Both girls were taken to hospital for health checks. The older girl has been taken into care. When the younger girl was found she was naked and emaciated. 

Comment: the story is not as extraordinary as it seems. Every now and then these sorts of bizarre stories pop-up of families allowing themselves to generate into chaos. They give up. They totally lose any attempt to maintain standards. The problem is that the vulnerable members of the family, the children and no doubt the cats as well, are the ones who suffer. I hope the cats are rehomed but I would be very surprised that they are or have been. There should be criminal prosecutions for child neglect but as this is Russia I'd doubt it will happen.

Although we should be slow to criticise. We don't know the history of backstory. Why did it happen? There must be an underlying reason. Perhaps the mother's parents indoctrinated her into Nazi obssessiveness and traumatised her.

This is also a case of cat hoarding but that is a secondary issue sadly.

Source: The Sun. There are no pictures of the child except for the pixelated one on this page which I presume was taken after she was rescued from her hell.