Про канадских "сирот Дюплесси" кое-что писали, а вот про похожую историю "детей по контракту" (Verdingkinder) в Швейцарии на русском нет почти ничего. Суть проста: сирот и других детей, находившихся на попечении государства, а также детей бедноты и родителей, не соответствовавших буржуазным представлениям о благопристойности (т.е. родивших детей вне брака или разведённых), которых забирали у родителей насильно, использовали в качестве дешёвой рабсилы, в основном на фермах. Никакого ограничения по возрасту не было, могли отдать и пятилетних, и двухлетних, по принципу "будут делать что смогут, подрастут - будут работать больше". Иногда в деревнях даже устраивали что-то вроде аукционов по раздаче таких детей, где требовалось показать, что на ферме нужны работники, а денег на их содержание ты из казны требовать не будешь.
В "приёмных семьях" к этим детям относились как к рабочей скотине, кормили впроголодь, не всегда давали учиться, постоянно избивали, иногда насиловали. Социальные службы на это никак не реагировали, а сама практика воспринималась как полезная в воспитании социальных низов. Началась эта благодать в середине XIX века, в середине XX-го всё ещё процветала и сошла на нет только в 60-70-х годах, и то по причинам сугубо прагматическим - из-за роста механизации сельского хозяйства. Официально лавочку прикрыли только в 1981-м году. Сколько через это прошло людей - неизвестно, говорят о сотнях тысяч, но подсчитать сложно, да и не все случаи в принципе были зарегистрированы; по неполным подсчётам, в 1930-м году "детей по контракту" было 35 000. Милые подробности этой практики периодически всплывали в печати, но почтеннейшая буржуазная публика предпочитала её не афишировать; сколько-нибудь подробное освещение темы началось только в последние годы, сегодня решили даже компенсацию заплатить.
Немного подробностей на английском:
"Families were deprived of custody if they didn't live according to a middle-class family model - unmarried mothers, or divorced people, or people who weren't able to keep their money together.
"The authorities took away a lot of children and placed them in agricultural environments where they had to work really hard."
Worse though was the way many children were treated. Often they were not accepted by the families they were placed with. They were not allowed to eat at the same table, were given very little food, and some were even forced to sleep in the cellar. Beatings were a daily event.
The exhibition "Verdingkinder Reden" or "Contract Children Speak", contains first-hand testimonies from former Verdingkinder, memories they have now shared with Ruedi Weidmann and his colleagues to draw attention to what happened.
In one room of the exhibition (on show in Zurich until April), the walls are painted with quotes from contract children:
"In winter they sewed my trouser pockets up (so I couldn't put my hands in them). They said, if you work, you'll stay warm" - Werner
"I wasn't allowed to talk. They talked about me, but never to me" - Clara
"I had to eat in a little windowless shed next to the stable. I was never allowed to eat in the kitchen at the table with them" - Johann
"I was so happy when I could go to school, because no one hit me there" - Alice
Other rooms show a variety of farm implements - rakes, wooden shoes, leather straps, cast iron pans. These, explains Mr Weidmann, were things the contract children mention regularly because they were used to hit them.
Other exhibits include small toys, and letters and postcards sent to the children by their real parents.
"These were nearly always taken away - presents for Christmas they were not allowed to have… to interrupt the contact with the real family," says Mr Weidmann
And some of it was moral, a way to discipline the lower classes.
He was taken to an old farmhouse and became the farmhand. He would wake before 06:00 and worked before and after school. His day finished after 22:00. This physically imposing man in his 70s looks vulnerable as he remembers the frequent violence from the foster father. "I would almost describe him as a tyrant... I was afraid of him. He had quite a temper and would hit me for the smallest thing," Gogniat says.
Dealing with the poor in this way she says was social engineering. If a parent dared to object, they could face measures themselves. "They could be put in prison or an institution where you would be made to work, so you could always put pressure on the parents."
Mostly it was farms that children were sent to, but not always. Sarah (not her real name) had been in institutions from birth, but in 1972, at the age of nine, she was sent to a home in a village, where she was expected to clean the house. She did that before and after school, and at night cleaned offices in nearby villages for her foster mother. She was beaten regularly by the mother, she says, and from the age of 11 was sexually abused by the sons at night.
This is the first time she has spoken about her story and her hands shake as she remembers. "The worst thing is that one sister, their daughter, once caught one of those boys... while I was asleep and she told the woman... [who said] that it didn't matter, I was just a slag anyway," Sarah says. A teacher and the school doctor wrote to the authorities, to express concern about her, but nothing was done.
There was no official decision to end the use of contract children. Seglias says it just naturally started to die out in the 1960s and 70s. As farming became mechanised, the need for child labour vanished. But Switzerland was changing too. Women got the vote in 1971 and attitudes towards poverty and single mothers moved on.
Источники: BBC - раз, BBC - два, английская википедия (плюс гуглоперевод немецкой), "The Telegraph". Есть пара материалов на русском: раз, два.
