According to the data of the Committee on Legal Statistics and Special Records of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan, crimes against children, namely murders, increased by 44.4 percent last year. More than half of them were committed by close relatives.

It is noteworthy that 66.2% of school-age children face violence, both at home and in educational institutions. In Kazakhstan, almost one third of one-year-old children are subjected to one of the forms of abusive upbringing. Among children aged two to four years, this figure reaches 50 percent, and at the age of 5-9 years – already 58.

Despite the fact that Kazakhstan has joined many international treaties and conventions related to the protection of the rights of minors, practice shows that it is extremely difficult to protect children from domestic and external violence. The story that happened to the heroes of our material clearly demonstrates the serious and irreparable consequences of the negligence and negligent attitude of parents to their children, as well as the indifference of others to the problems of minors.

Suhrab and Zubeyr grew up in one of the most criminal (in the 90s) districts of the southern capital - the Lower Five – year Plan. There was always nervous tension in the house of this family, the parents did not get along well with each other. The family drama lasted for about three years, as a result, the boys ' father decided to take his sons to him at all costs and give them a decent male upbringing. The result of such an act was that the immature children were deprived of the most important thing – maternal love. The children's mother disappeared from their lives for a long ten years. By the decision of the Turksib District Court of Almaty in 1994, a woman was deprived of her maternal rights. She tried to see her children secretly, waiting behind school fences, but the class teachers were aware of everything in advance and were in a hurry to report a suspicious stranger to school inspectors. Deciding that she remained useless to anyone, the woman went nowhere.

It was not easy for a man who was left with two small children. He did not have a higher education, worked in a cement warehouse, sometimes ran on behalf of his superiors to lay asphalt. In general, I did everything for a penny. Suhrab was the eldest in the family, he studied well. The teachers noticed that the boy is smart beyond his years, diligent and loves books, but for some reason he is sad all the time. This was not surprising, since the father married for the second time and brought a woman into the house who often offended the boys. Unlike his younger brother, Suhrab took everything to heart, and he endured every unfair accusation against himself with great emotional experience. Suhrab's brother, on the contrary, was very cheerful and playful. He could disappear on the street for days on end, eating whatever he could. This toddler often came home dirty and hungry and loudly asked his stepmother what she had prepared for lunch or dinner. The stepmother did not like this behavior, and after a series of good slaps and kicks under the ass, Zubeyr was driven into the bathroom to sit without light, and Suhrab – on the balcony. That's how the siblings lived for a while in a house that became a stranger to both of them. Exhausted, hungry and dirty, they often cried when they were thrown out into the street. They could not tell their father about their troubles, since he disappeared on business trips for months. He learned about everything from the stories of neighbors who were not indifferent to the fate of children. Sometimes they tried to take them to their home and feed them, but will the children who ate once a day be full? This went on for about a year, and after another crazy prank of his second wife, who hit Zubeir hard in the face, the man threw the woman out into the street along with the dowry and never met her again.

Lives thrown overboard

The man stayed with his sons, it seemed that they lived well. There were days when they were hungry, but there was no end to the happiness of Suhrab and Zubeir, because now no one was beating them or terrorizing them. The father gave the children everything he could, but unfortunately, he could not replace the mother. Subsequently, he tried to get married for the third time, but even in this marriage, happiness did not work out. Along with this, his business trips did not stop, the man was afraid to leave the children alone for whole months in the apartment, so he took the boys to their parents in the village of Kok-Kairat (the name of the village has been changed) in the Almaty region. My own grandmother, as well as aunts and uncles, did not particularly welcome my nephews. My grandmother tried to slap me all the time, and my uncles and aunts exploited me mercilessly. They were also fed-once a day, they were sent to an unheated summer temporary camp for the night. When someone from the household lit a fire in the hearth, on top of which a large three-liter cauldron was mounted, the room became warm, but this little joy very quickly evaporated through the asbestos slate, which imitated a kind of ceiling. The hearth stood in the corner of a spacious, eternally cold room, and only black soot, which had been ingrained to the walls of a house that had not been whitewashed for a long time, testified that the centuries-old attribute of satiety and prosperity (cauldron) had been idle for a very long time. The children were outcasts, they were hated and despised. They did not understand why people were so cruel to them, why they were called bad and what they were guilty of.

One day, waking up in the morning from the cold, Zubeyr began to cry violently and did not calm down. Suhrab turned him around and asked him what had happened. The baby complained that he was very hungry and missed his mother. Then the elder brother hugged him tightly, and, angry at the injustice that was being done, he also began to cry. He promised his younger brother a happy life, that everything would end soon, his father would come and take them home. He insisted that life could not always be so harsh and gave his word never to leave him, to be close and not to give offense. Having calmed down a little, Zubeir fell asleep again. After a while, the children were woken up by the raspy voice of their grandmother, who called them for breakfast. Breakfast was always the same: tea without milk, poured into tiny cups, and a stale flatbread, divided into small pieces. It was impossible to eat it. Not because the breakfast was inedible, but because reproaches and accusations of the worthlessness and incompetence of children were constantly hovering over my ear. At every opportunity, the grandmother predicted a criminal future for the boys. Remembering about his hungry brother, who cried in the morning because of malnutrition, Suhrab decided to break off a piece of stale flatbread and put Zubeir. Suddenly, he felt a resounding slap on the back of his head and several more blows on the head. Zubeyr began to cry, opening his mouth, from which pieces of half-eaten bread fell out, jumped from impotence. He began to beg not to beat his brother, to justify himself for him, but this angered the uncle who was beating Suhrab even more. He threw the children out into the street and they ran away into the garden at a rapid run. Suhrab was crying from impotence, driven to despair, and Zubeir, having calmed down a little, held his crying brother tightly by the shoulder and looked back with fear.

In the potato field

So the last warm autumn days have flown by. With the arrival of October, it began to drizzle heavily, the boys were also driven into an unheated temporary shelter. I haven't heard from my father for about six months, they said that he was sent to Russia. The brothers were very weak from malnutrition, Zubeir was constantly crying. For this, Suhrab scolded and at the same time calmed him, explaining that men never cry. While the children were at their grandmother's, they got used to constant slaps and screams, but they could not get used to hard work. Six-year-old Zubeir always tried to hold on to his brother, because he was the only close person. Needless to say, the eight-year-old Suhrab also loved him, because having grown up quite quickly from a difficult orphan life with living parents, he was well aware that he was responsible for everything. They often joked in the evenings when they were getting ready for bed in the temporary shelter, laughed heartily and were sad for a long time, remembering their parents. Each of their days began with an unfriendly address to them, but no one, unfortunately, could change this. From morning to evening, the children worked in the fields under the close attention of their own uncle named Alik. He was about 30 years old, he had no education. He never had any children of his own. In the village, he was reputed to be aggressive and restless, he liked to drink and, of course, to fight. It was he who all the time mocked the unfortunate children, gave them slaps on the head, forcing them to carry heavy loads, chop wood and carry water from afar. The exhausted and exhausted nephews worked for a long time on the vast potato fields, harvested the harvest in forty-kilogram rag bags, and then loaded them into a britzka with a donkey. Then they unloaded all this into a special home cellar at my grandmother's. The fields were located 12 kilometers from the house, there was no road to them at all. It was especially difficult to push the britzka loaded, because the forged metal wheels instantly sank into the loose clay earth, and the donkey often did not pull a large load. The boys ' uncle often whipped them with a cane. He beat on the legs and backs, shouted in his ear that he would kill both of them and bury them in the field if the britzka did not reach home. He himself retreated far back and walked slowly after the exhausted children. The boys made about six flights a day, then went to bed exhausted and tired. On one of these afternoon flights, they unloaded potatoes into the cellar, but the grandmother decided to send her eldest grandson to a neighboring village for water. The grandson wanted to explain that it was necessary to catch the last britzka, but the grandmother raised such a tantrum that the boy was forced to run headlong. Zubeir looked at his brother in fright, and Suhrab promised that he would return soon. Zubeyr hurriedly ran after the britzka, simultaneously collecting empty bags from the floor. The children were not allowed to get into the britzka, they said that the donkey gets tired quickly. Even the neighbors who saw this attitude turned to Alik and asked him to have mercy on the unfortunate, but the man never listened to anyone.

It was evening twilight, exhausted by work, six-year-old Zubeir several times clumsily cut through potatoes with a bayonet shovel while digging. My uncle saw it by chance. With a sharp movement, Alik snatched the shovel from the boy's exhausted hands and hit him on the head with the flat side. The boy cried out in surprise: "Ouch!", squatted down and began to cry, clutching his head. The cruel monster began to kick the child with his feet and swear loudly. No one knows how Suhrab was able to return to the field so quickly, but when he saw the picture, the boy ran away and pushed his uncle in the back with all his strength, from which he rolled head over heels into an ice ditch intended for watering fields. Suhrab approached his brother and began to feel sorry for him. Like thousands of times before, he tried to calm them down and did not even notice how their abuser appeared in front of them like a shadow. Glaring with distraught eyes, he kicked the nose side of his kirza boot right into the side of his obstinate nephew. The child flew several meters away, tumbled on the ground and lost consciousness. This did not stop Alik, he picked up the boy and threw him on the ground again. Zubeir tried to hold the monster by the hand, but immediately got a fist in the ear. From impotence, the child began to stamp his feet and shout loudly, but there was no one in the field except for themselves. Suhrab regained consciousness from the impact on the ground, but was unable to get up. Suddenly, a lot of blood came out of his nose and the boy again went into oblivion, and the uncle, deciding that the boy was pretending, spat and, throwing the shovels with the collected bags of potatoes into the britzka, drove home.

Released

Zubeyr took off his dirty shirt, soaked it in an icy ditch and began to rub his brother's face. I woke him up and stroked his head, deceived him that his father and mother had arrived, but Suhrab did not react, he was motionless. After a while, the boy still opened his eyes and, with the help of his younger brother, got up with incredible efforts. The head instantly became heavy and dizzy, the child often lost his balance. After a few hours, taking small breaks, the children reached their grandmother's house. Suhrab spoke with a hoarse voice, his face was very swollen, but the household did not come out to meet anyone, but as if on purpose, decided to go to bed early. The children entered an inhospitable temporary shelter. Suhrab asked for a drink, but he kept throwing up from drinking. The younger brother looked at the older one in fright, took care of him as best he could, but tired of hard work in the field, he barely held on so as not to fall. The beaten boy began to rave, large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, it seemed as if something was tearing him from the inside. And then the nose started bleeding again. Zubeir wiped his brother's face with a damp shirt and silently began to cry. He knew that there was nowhere to wait for help, he prayed to God, asked for their own father to knock on the door, asked for his brother to feel better. But despite his pleas, no one knocked at the temporary shelter, and Suhrab was getting worse and worse. Little Zubeir took his brother by the hand and began to talk to him. Perhaps it was at these moments of his life that the child grew up too early. In the back of my mind, I began to understand that something terrible and irreparable was coming. Suhrab made a last effort and told his brother what he always said: "Soon mom and dad will come... we will be fine!". Then he lost consciousness again. Zubayr saw that his brother had fallen asleep and, too, slightly covered with an old blanket, laid his wounded head on his shoulder.

From extreme fatigue, Zubeir fell asleep as if he had fallen asleep forever. He dreamed of his parents, a plentiful dastarkhan with various jams and spices. His father sat him and Suhrab on his lap and talked cheerfully with their mother about something. The boy slept so carelessly, as if all the troubles in his life were already far behind, he was happy and even smiled. At this time, his older brother began to rave again, asked to leave him and frowned, the swelling on his face subsided a little and he lifted his heavy eyelids. No one knows what the boy saw at that moment, what he felt and whether he was suffering from pain, but it was then, with a slight smile, that he closed his eyes again, and this time for good.

The autumn coolness woke Zubeir from his sleep. He sat up in bed and looked at the dismantled roof of the house, only the asbestos slate was visible there. The rays of the rising morning sun shone through it, the boy rubbed his eyes and remembered his probably the sweetest dream in his life. He looked at the dirty and callused hands and sighed heavily. Then he turned to Suhrab and jumped back from fright. The elder brother lay motionless, turned blue and seemed to stretch out in height. A slight smile was reflected on his deathly pale face, and his left hand was frozen on his chest. Zubeir tried to wake his brother, but he realized deep in his heart that he would never wake up again. The boy did not make a single sound, silently dropping warm tears on his hot cheeks, again clung to his brother's petrified shoulder. I remembered the moment when I woke up one morning and cried because I wanted to eat, and my brother hugged him, promising never to leave him and always be there. The child understood that right now he had lost a part of himself. Perhaps it was this day that took his childhood forever and took him to heaven with his brother, or maybe it was a harsh reality of life that many street children faced? Zubeir could not find an explanation for this because of his age and the shock he had experienced. Instead, he started talking to his brother, and now everything looked as if they had switched places. Now the younger brother was telling the elder that everything would get better very soon. Mother and father will get together again, they will come for them, and they will always be full. The boy's voice faltered, and he began to cry. The children's crying was also heard in the grandmother's house, the uncle-monster, having slept well and reddened from a hangover, kicked open the old door, and, it would seem, wanted to yell at his nephews, but being scared, jumped away from the door and ran home. Grandma instantly found herself in a temporary shelter and was taken aback by surprise. After a while, all the household members gathered in the boys ' room and silently looked at the eight-year-old child who had left at night. Zubeir was driven into a large house and put at the table, serving breakfast. But the boy did not look at it, he just sat silently, staring at one point.

On that day, a criminal plan matured in the grandmother's house. Two sisters and three brothers decided to secretly bury their deceased nephew, and the killer himself was sent to another city to wait out the impending storm. At night, the boy's body was taken to the nearest cemetery and silently, as if it was not a person at all, but some soulless object, they buried it and returned home with calm hearts. The attitude towards Zubair instantly changed. Now no one oppressed him or beat him. He spent the night in a warm and large house. The grandmother tried to feed the boy several times a day, they turned on the TV with cartoons and even let him play with the neighboring children, but the orphaned baby, like a living corpse, did not talk to anyone and almost did not eat anything. The former joy on his face, which shone even when he and his brother suffered hardships, disappeared. Now he sat for a long time in the corner of one of the rooms of his grandmother's big house and thought about something.

Father's arrival

It was the winter of 1998. At lunchtime, a white Volga stopped near the gate of a rural house. Two men got out of the car, one of them – the father of two boys. He arrived after a long business trip from Russia in a car filled to the brim with all sorts of food products. With this gesture, he wanted to thank his own mother and brothers for helping him out at the most difficult and responsible moment in his life – they looked after the children. The man was sure that now his sons would study at school, keeping up with the curriculum, and he would do everything in his power to make them live happily. I walked over the snow crunching under my feet to the porch of my father's house and opened the cherished door. The January air instantly filled the parents ' house with cold, and Zubeir ran screaming into the arms of his father. The boy began to cry. His father laughed and comforted him. The grandmother ran by the eldest son, slyly wiping a stingy tear, and the two younger sisters, as if petrified, stood speechless. The newcomer answered the questions of his relatives, then asked about his eldest son. The grandmother pretended that she did not hear and tried to talk about other topics, but the man picked up Zubeyr in his arms and went through the rooms, hoping to find his second son. When he saw no one, he asked if the child was on the street. He was ignored again. A sudden alarm burned his chest, his head began to throb, he called his eldest son again, but there was a silent silence in response. Looking at the boy, the father asked him about his brother, but he burst into tears even more. And then the grandmother decided to tell him about the tragedy that had happened. In this story, she removed all responsibility from herself and her children, reduced to the fact that her granddaughter died through her own fault. He did not listen to "caring" relatives, ran around the street undressed and caught a deadly cold. The man was speechless for a few minutes, which seemed to everyone an eternity, and screamed at the whole house. Then he ran out into the street in what he was wearing and ran to the cemetery. The friend who came with him went after his friend, and Zubeyr, not wanting to stay in the house, also ran after the pope.

The child's grave was searched for a long time, and if the watchman, who was monitoring the safety and cleanliness of these places, had not pointed to a lonely mound standing to the side without an inscription, the man might have been looking for this place for a long time. The caretaker told the visitors about how a bunch of suspicious people buried a child here at night and told him to keep his mouth shut under threat of death. The village of Kok-Kairat was not very large, so all the villagers knew each other by name. The boys ' father sat near his son's grave for another couple of hours until a friend picked him up and led him to the car. He was unable to react to something, did not believe in what had happened until the last moment and plunged into thought. I learned about how everything really happened from the mouth of Zubeyr. The investigative authorities immediately opened a criminal case and filed a wanted list for the alleged criminal. The boy's body was exhumed and a forensic examination showed that he died due to a rupture of the right kidney with signs of injury. He could have been saved if timely medical assistance had been provided, but his relatives decided that he was just pretending. All the defendants in this case were convicted under a criminal article for "Failure to report a crime" and" Concealment of a crime " were sentenced to four to five years in prison. As for the 69-year-old woman-the grandmother of the deceased, she was released due to old age and diabetes. Three months later, Alik, tired of running away from law enforcement agencies, returned to his father's house. That same evening he got very drunk, and the next morning he was found hanged in a cattle shed.

«Forgive me…»

In October 2018, two excavators and a white foreign car stopped at the gate of an old abandoned house in the village of Kok-Kairat, from which a fit man in a police uniform got out. From his shoulder straps, it was possible to determine that this was a police captain. He was followed by a four-year-old boy with a toy automatic in his hands. This house was inherited by him, and the excavators were waiting for the demolition team. The man went to the gate and opened the rusty gate with a creak. After standing in indecision for about a minute, with the words "Bismillahir rachmanir rahim!" he slowly entered the courtyard. To his right was an old abandoned temporary building, the walls of which were about to collapse, and to his left was a large semi-basement house. Its windows were closed with wooden shutters, and it was clear that no one had lived in it for a long time. He decided to enter the old temporary building. The swollen, multi-year-old door surprisingly opened noiselessly. The policeman saw an abandoned hearth, on which a three-liter cauldron lay diagonally, then turned his gaze towards a wooden cot and froze for a moment. I went up to him and sat down. A feeling of pain filled his powerful chest, tears rolled to his throat. Here he saw for the last time the most dear and dear person. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and looked at the old asbestos slate. The rays of the autumn sun penetrated through the front openings on the roof in the same way as many years ago. Suddenly, a mischievous four-year-old boy ran into the temporary shelter, very much like the one who remained alive in his heart forever. Looking at his father, the boy offered to play hide-and-seek. The man thought he saw an angel. Getting up from his seat, he ran to the boy and hugged him tightly. He sobbed, shaking his shoulders, and asked for forgiveness. I began to tell him about how I lived all this time, that my parents never got together, but peace still came into their lives. He thanked him for being in his life once, regretted that he could not save him on that fateful evening-20 years ago. He said that he missed him very much. The little boy was extremely surprised by this behavior of his parent. He also began to cry and said: "I love you too, Dad!". These words brought Zubeir to consciousness. He looked into his son's eyes, lowered him to the floor and said, wiping the tears from his face: "I will always be there for you and I will never leave you! You and your mother – you are my whole life!..". Living with a big trauma in his heart all these years, he named his son after his dead brother, and sometimes he was surprised at how strong genetics can be. Looking at the boy, it seemed to everyone as if his late brother had been born again. Even my grandfather, who doted on his only grandson, noticed this. Having calmed down a little, Zubeir suggested that Suhrab go to a good restaurant nearby and have a delicious lunch. The boy nodded his head eagerly and took his father's hand. So, going to the exit to give the command to the excavators, Zubeyr looked around the whole room for the last time, in which he once suffered hardships with his brother, and, as if freeing himself from a long-term wound in his heart, stepped over the threshold to a new and happy life.

Bakhtiar TOKHTAKHUNOV