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04/07/2006:
"Problem children locked up in pig pens, Spanish police say"
Swiss teenagers sent to a centre for problem children based at a remote Spanish farmhouse were allegedly locked up in pig pens and kept on a diet of milk and muesli if they misbehaved, according to police.The case came to light after some of the children ran away and one was found at a nearby railway station.
Police in the north-eastern town of Sant Llorenç de la Muga arrested three people who had been running the centre and accused them of illegally detaining children and using physical and psychological violence against them. "Those in charge of the centre allegedly mistreated the children daily, shutting them up for days on end in pig pens if they did not want to work or worked poorly," a Spanish police statement said. "Some children were shut up eight hours a day in the pig pens for three months," it added. Police said other children were allegedly confined in a space measuring one square metre.
guardian.co.uk
