Belarus Suspends US Respite Holiday Programs

The Belarusian government has suspended all programs providing for Belarusian children’s respite holidays in the United States after a 16-year-old girl refused to go back home following a six-week stay with a family in California, said BelaPAN.

Groups of Belarusian children, many of them affected by the Chernobyl aftermath or orphans, spend time with host families abroad during summer holidays in trips organized by charities.

The practice has come under the spotlight after Tatsyana Kazyra failed to show up for a flight home earlier this month.

In a statement posted on its website, the humanitarian activity office at the Belarusian Presidential Administration’s property management department links the decision to suspend US respite holiday programs to what it calls “the illegal holding of underage Belarusian citizen Tatsyana Kazyra on the territory of the United States.”

The office has invited the US government to sign an interstate agreement governing Belarusian children’s respite holidays in that country.

“The draft agreement will be sent to the American side in the near future,” the statement says.

While talking to reporters last week, Education Minister Alyaksandr Radzkow said that “the girl said that she wants to return to Belarus.”

However, in an interview with The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Ms. Kazyra denied that she was being held against her will. "I love this family and I want to stay a little bit longer. It’s my real family," she said.

Reports have it that the girl, who had been visiting the same host family in Petaluma, a city some 35 miles north of San Francisco, for nine summers, applied for a visa extension.

In 2006 an Italian couple refused to send an orphan girl back to Belarus for three weeks, saying that the she had been abused there.

The incident prompted Belarus and Italy to sign an agreement whereby the latter’s government assumed responsibility for the return to Belarus of all children traveling to Italy for charity-funded respite holidays.

Mr. Radzkow said that Belarus wants to sign similar agreements with more countries.

The Belarusian foreign ministry has notified the US embassy in Minsk that Belarus has decided to suspend all programs providing for Belarusian children’s respite holidays in the United States.