YEAR: 2002 | LENGTH: 1 part (43 minutes) | SOURCE: UNKNOWN
description:
A terrified three-year-old sits sobbing in an outdoor kennel, cuddled up to a dog for comfort. She has been thrown out of the house by a drunken parent for crying with hunger.
Another infant cries alone for hours in a dark room where she is left dirty and hungry. When her cries bring no comfort she turns and passively faces the wall. These are typical experiences in the extraordinary lives of Oxana, Edik and Genie, the children shown on the documentary “Wild Child”.
The following cases are covered:
– Oxana Malaya, Ukraine: For six years, Oxana Malaya spent her life living in a kennel with dogs. Totally abandoned by her alcoholic mother and father, she was discovered behaving more like an animal than a human child.
– In 1800 in France, villagers had talked of a wild child who lurked in the forest. News of the capture spread fast and sent shockwaves throughout Europe. The young boy was taken to Paris where he was named Victor. The general medical profession thought him little more than a savage.
– For 13 years, Genie spent her nights locked in wire do cage, her days strapped to her potty chair. Her father Clark ordered his son John and wife Irene never to talk to her. She lived in almost total isolation. Genies bedroom was at the back of the house with the window covered. The furnishings of the bedroom consisted of a cage with a chicken-wire lid, and a potty chair with some kind of home-made strapping device.
