Parents of 2-Year-old Sofya Zakharova were mortified after they tried to enroll their daughter in a local nursery only for them to reject her because of her facial deformity.
“‘First, you need to arrange an operation so she can go to nursery school like an ordinary child,’” her mother, Svetlana Zakharova, claims she was told by nursery staff, ACCORDING TO METRO.
Her daughter has a skull deformity that makes her forehead slightly larger than normal. The little girl’s fingers and toes are also fused together.
The little girl and her parents live in the Russian village of Alatany in the Bashkortostan region along with her grandparents. Their home doesn’t have heat, running water, gas, or a stove. Sofya’s parents also do not receive any type of disability help from the government, although a local charity called Rainbow Goodness tried to help pressure the school to accept Sofya to no avail.
“They have such a catastrophe here,” says grandfather Sergei Mikhailov. “They said they would do the operation, but then were silent about this.”
Recently, several local politicians have become involved in the family’s plight.
“I understand that if it were not for the intervention of the charitable foundation, there would have been no meetings on this and no relocation,” says Radiy Khabirov, head of the Republic of Bashkortostan. “It’s already clear that the rights of the child and parents are violated, and there will now be an appropriate legal assessment.”
In a sweet video of Sofya and her mom, you can see the child laughing and playing with watercolors like any other happy toddler. Sofya is just a bit different physically.