Mother Teresa charity ties children for safety

A charity founded by Mother Teresa said on Sunday disabled children at one of its homes in India were restrained for their own safety, after a British television reporter filmed children tied to their beds. Britain's Five News, in a programme to be broadcast on Monday, said it had uncovered "serious shortcomings" at a care centre run by the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.
It secretly filmed many of the 59 children - aged six months to 12 years - living at the Daya Dan shelter tied by their ankles to their cots at night, restrained while being fed and left for up to 20 minutes on the toilet by their carers.
In a statement, Five News said it began investigating the home after hearing complaints from international aid workers.
The global order of nuns said on Sunday its charitable homes only tied children when absolutely necessary.
"Physical restraints are used only when absolutely necessary for the safety of the child ... for limited periods of time," a Missionaries of Charity statement faxed to Reuters said.
"We value constructive criticism and admit that there is always room for improvement."
A spokeswoman for the order, Sister Christie, told Reuters by phone from Calcutta: "It (the tying) happens only when we see the child could be hurt. It's about their safety.
"The children are sometimes tied because they keep waving their hands and moving when being fed. Also they could fall off (the cots) while sleeping at night."
Five News reporter Donal MacIntyre said: "I was truly shocked by what I found at the Daya Dan centre. There are strategies for looking after disabled children that minimise stressful situations, and, as a result of poor training and lack of resources, staff are resorting to inhumane practises such as tying children up."
Five News said: "The shocking footage reveals that despite receiving millions of pounds in donations every year, there is little evidence of its investment at the centres Donal visited."
Daya Dan was set up in 1998, a year after the death of Mother Teresa, who adopted Calcutta as the centre of her global charitable order that now runs more than 750 centres across the world.
The Missionaries of Charity, famous for working among the sick, destitute and dying, said it was committed to serving the ideals of Mother Teresa and improving the quality of care in Daya Dan.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa, who founded the order in 1950 in Calcutta, died in 1997 at the age of 87.