Harry Potter author's crusade for caged Romanian orphans

London, Feb.27 : "Harry Potter" author J K Rowling will join British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, in a battle today to end the horror of Romanian orphans being kept in squalid cages.

According to The Sun, both launched a crusade after seeing harrowing photos of tots locked in barbaric cage beds in so-called care homes.

The youngsters are mostly abandoned babies or kids with physical or mental problems. Many are caged for hours in appalling conditions.

Since Romania joined the EU, Brown has been pressing for action. He will meet Romanian Premier Calin Popescu-Tariceanu here today while Ms Rowling and Mrs Brown hold talks with his wife Ioana.

The plan is to help tackle healthcare problems in the East European country that can lead to disabilities.

Brown also wants to support efforts to stop babies being abandoned at hospitals.

Rowling has set up a charity to help the orphans and donated a substantial chunk of her 500-million-pound fortune.

She has written in The Sun about victims less than four months old with brain damage. There are also fears brutalised kids end up being sold into prostitution.

More than 47,000 kids were found abandoned by poverty-hit parents in Romania in 1991 after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The situation has much improved with many older children going to foster homes and later living independently in purpose-built flats. But the suffering in cages still goes on.

ANI