A couple of years ago, I thought that the current children would grow up more or less without major national traumas of the generation.

After the Second World War, several generations changed, and even people who were born in independent Belarus are becoming parents themselves.

But now it is clear that this generation has its own catastrophe, and its name is Lukashenka's regime.

Today Daria Losik was sentenced to two years in prison.

She was sentenced simply because she did not put up with the unjust imprisonment of her husband Igor.

She was sentenced because she did not keep silent, but called a spade a spade.

And also to make everyone else afraid.

And there is something to be afraid of.

Prison does not improve physical or mental health, destroys social ties and separates a person from his family.

And children are left without parents.

The 4-year-old girl Paulina was temporarily left without her father and mother, as they are now political prisoners.

Like every child, she has her daily rituals.

There is something that calms and pleases her.

Daria knew exactly how to help her daughter when she was sick.

Will the grandparents, with whom Paulina lives now, be able to do the same?

I don't know.

And it is terrible that this question arises at all.

What the Belarusian authorities are doing is not genocide as such, because we are not talking about mass physical destruction of people (so far?).

But this is a deliberate mockery of thousands of people.

And we can endlessly reassure ourselves with words like "they are unbreakable" and "they are freer behind bars than those left at large."

Only these are absolutely empty words.

Once I interviewed Daria, and she told how she dislikes them and how angry she is at people who romanticize the horror of political prisoners and their families.

Now Daria herself is behind bars.

She can no longer defend her husband or take care of her daughter.

And this is a disaster.

What will be the consequences for little Paulina and other children whose parents are now in prisons?

What are they going through now and those people who temporarily replace their moms and dads?

Behind each such story is the tragedy of an entire family - a lot of pain, tears and despair.

The "socially oriented state" now brings children exactly this - pain, tears and despair.

And adults too.

I don't know how to return Paulina and other children to their carefree childhood, in which mom sings a lullaby before bed, and dad takes them to kindergarten in the morning and kisses them on the nose to say goodbye.

I also don't know whether all the people involved in the repressions in Belarus will be punished.

But I really want it.

The opinions expressed in the blogs represent the views of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editors.

  • Nasta Zakharevich

    Freelance journalist, radical feminist

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