12. Genie, USA, 1970
Genie was a toddler when her father decided she was “retarded”. His response was to tie her to a chair and leave her in a room for 10 years. When her mother removed her from the type of solitary confinement in 1970, she was taken to child services where social workers saw that she had an odd “bunny-walk”. Not only was she not toilet-trained, she couldn’t speak and constantly spat and clawed herself.
She passed through foster homes for a number of years, where children often made fun of her. When she returned to a children’s hospital, she was completely silent. Because funding for her rehabilitate stopped in 1974, she lives in a home for mentally underdeveloped adults.
