A criminal case is being considered in Karaganda against members of the foster Isabayev family, as a result of whose cruel treatment one of the children became disabled.
According to KTK, six foster children were subjected to systematic abuse, beatings and humiliation over a period of five years. They were also forced to do housework and look after livestock.
On the defendants' bench are a 45-year-old man, his wife and their daughter. All three are accused of torture, causing grievous bodily harm and fraud.
According to the investigation, the head of the family embezzled money allocated by the state for the maintenance of orphans and spent it on bookmaker bets and lotteries. The children, according to available information, were kept in conditions that degraded human dignity: they were forbidden from using the household toilet, forced to eat separately, and even compelled to consume manure.
"The palace was in the guest room, they put me there, wrapped me up and started jumping. Aliya Yakovlevna, Nurayym Ayanovna and Ayan Zhapykhanovich," one of the boys recounted.
It is reported that the children entered the family in 2018, but the criminal case was only opened in 2023. The trial has only just begun.
Six orphan victims — aged between 11 and 16 — gave testimony. The eldest described how he sustained a severe head injury after being hit with a rolling pin.
"They smashed my head with a rolling pin and said: 'Lie, say you fell off a swing.' And when I was lying in hospital in the 45th block, I told the doctors that I had been hit with a rolling pin. That's why I have this scar; they put a plate in here and stitched me up here," he explained.
The younger children, according to their accounts, were subjected to physical punishment by the defendants' daughter. The victims claim that she forced them to eat faeces if they 'behaved badly' or disobeyed. Experts recorded between 19 and 47 scars on the body of each child.
According to the children, over five years they never saw any representatives from the guardianship authorities or staff from the boarding school. On several occasions they tried to report what was happening to teachers and doctors, but no help followed.
The situation changed after the grandmother of three of the children unexpectedly visited them and took them home. The others were returned to the orphanage. Only after that did the case make progress.
The defendants deny their guilt. According to the head of the family, he "showed the children fatherly love", teaching them chess and how to play the dombra.
"I showed you my fatherly love, didn't I? I taught you the dombra and chess, didn't I?" he asked one of the boys in the courtroom.
The defence insists that the children are exaggerating, and that the family supposedly did everything possible for their upbringing, including enrolling them in clubs.