Girl, 12, to get DNA tests on live TV to find out who her baby’s father is
Tanya Luchishin with her mother Anna
Just when you thought reality TV couldn’t sink any lower, a show in Ukraine has plummeted to new depths.
Tanya is now 12 but became pregnant at the age of 11. The father is suspected to be her stepfather or one of her two brothers and the girl will receive DNA evidence live on TV to prove which it is.
The girl, who has already faced a studio ordeal, originally claimed that her five-week-old daughter Diana had been fathered by an 18-year-old neighbour.
But after it was made clear he could face a jail sentence of five to 10 years for sex with a minor, he had a DNA test that showed the baby was not his.
The girl, now 12, then revealed that she had suffered a sex attack at the hands of a relative.
The show is now DNA testing her stepfather Ivan Eremin, who is in his 30s, her brother, Volodya, 15, and half brother, 17.
They all deny that they are the baby’s father. The show, called It Concerns Everybody, is due to be aired this week despite the girl not wanting to take part.
Her stepfather said: ‘I would not have come here if I had anything to do with the pregnancy of my step-daughter. I am ready to undertake a DNA test and to prove that I am not the father of this child.
‘I am afraid of nothing. I don’t want to live when people are pointing their figures at me, at my wife. I never had any relations with Tanya, I could not even think about it.’
Psychologists have expressed strong concern that the public ordeal is having on the girl and critics say she should be seen as a child victim of multiple rapes.
Ivan Eremin, step-father of Tanya
Vlada Berezyanskaya, a psychologist who examined the girl for the programme, said: ‘This girl…is simply afraid. She is depressed now.’
‘Tanya is a child, she is guilty of nothing,’ she added.
Tanya’s 31-year-old mother Anna Luchishin – who has six children – has been blamed for putting her vulnerable daughter through the trial by TV amid suspicion she is getting paid for exposing her family’s problems.
She is now helping the girl raise the child, Diana, born weighing 5lb 5oz by Caesarean on 17 September, but on screen was seen encouraging her daughter to answer intimate questions when the girl plainly did not want to.
Police are looking into the allegations, but have not sought to stop the show being aired.
Presenter Andrey Danilevich, from Inter TV, claimed he was simply seeking to uncover the truth.
Volodya Luchishin, Tanya’s brother
‘The girl, who got pregnant at the age of 11, is in any case is the victim of adult irresponsibility and manipulations,’ he said.
‘Now almost all the men in Borislav town who visited the Luchishin family are under suspicion, including the girl’s stepfather and brothers.’
‘We all know how cruel the people’s tongues can be. It is important to find out who is the father of the girl’s child in order to stop the speculation.’
Anna, her mother, told viewers her daughter had initially named who she believed to be the father.
‘But our neighbour Andriy is not the father of my granddaughter Diana,’ she said. ‘I received a call from the laboratory in Lviv and they said it was not him.
‘Andriy’s father Oleg had paid for this DNA test in Lviv. I was shocked. I told Tanya about the test and asked her – so who was it then?
Viktor Dimiyon, Tanya’s half-brother
‘And she told me there was one more person. I asked her to tell me the truth. It happened in February when I was in hospital with my newborn daughter Viktoria.
‘I don’t want to give the name. It is a person from our family. But it may not be him.’
She has also given the same name to police.
Anna said: ‘I should not say this but I don’t know now if I can trust my daughter. She says one thing, than another thing, as if she doesn’t know herself.
‘She pointed at Andriy before and I attacked him. I don’t know what to do now. Maybe she is wrong again? Tanya is upset now, she does not want to say more.’
She said she did not realise she was pregnant until a doctor noticed when she accompanied her mother to a check-up for her baby sister.
‘Tanya was sent to a scan and within a minute the doctor said: “You’re pregnant?” I screamed – “how?”
Tanya Luchishin with her baby daughter Diana
‘Tanya began to say: “No, I can’t be pregnant.”
‘And the next moment doctor asked her: “Who did you sleep with?” Tanya cried and said she never did it.’
‘When we left the scanner room, I began to cry, I felt so unwell. Tanya told me: ‘Mama, it was Andriy, our neighbour. From the hospital I went straight to the police.’
Tanya said: ‘I didn’t know that I was pregnant. I did not feel the baby moving. I never felt sick, I had no pains. I was going to PE lessons at school. There were no pains.
‘I felt contractions on 18 September, it was 35 weeks – so then my daughter was born.’
Anna admitted: ‘Now my husband Ivan and my son Volodya are under suspicion.
‘I have spoken to Volodya. He said: ‘Mum, don’t mock me. ‘ I spoke to my husband.
‘He was really upset, and he told me he wanted to do a DNA test, because he could not live like this.
‘He wants to prove to the whole of Ukraine that it was not him.
‘When we came back home from the police that day, he got drunk. His mother called me in tears, saying everyone at her work blames him.’
Neighbour Alexandra Virt claimed: ‘All of us could see that Tanya was pregnant. We told her mother many times about it, I told her, other women told her. She did not take any action. I even told Ivan: “Your Tanya is pregnant”.
‘He said: “What are you talking about? She had just had her period”. ‘I remember I said to my husband then: “How could the man know when Tanya had her period?”
Volodya Luchishin, Tanya’s brother, his arm bandaged after a playground fight over the matter, said: ‘When I came to school, other students said: “Oh, you’re a TV celebrity now, so you are the father?”. Or: “Your step-father is the father?” So I had to fight. She is my sister, how could I sleep with her? I know who is suspected but I don’t want to talk about it.’
Half brother Viktor Dimiyon said: ‘I am not guilty and I don’t know who is the father of her child.’
Diana was recently baptised in an Orthodox church when Eremin held the baby with his wife.
Tanya has proudly posted pictures of her baby on her social media, but has received some ‘dirty and negative comments’ in response.
Children ombudsman Valeria Lutkovskaya accused the show of flouting Tanya’s human rights and appealed to Ukraine’s TV regulator to take legal measures against the channel.
Lviv regional police say a criminal investigation has been opened relating to underage sex.
Police say they have ordered separate DNA tests over the paternity and point out that the neighbour can face prosecution over his admission of sex with the girl when she was 11.
One critic said the questioning of Tanya was ‘like the Gestapo’.
Inna Agalieva said: ‘This show is beyond all limits — to drag such a child to the TV show and make her undergo all these traumas in public.
‘You are jackals, not human beings. This child needs a psychological rehabilitation and protection from rapists. The father of her child and who raped her must be established by police.’
credits:metro.co.uk
