MOSCOW — In Russia, where the entire LGBTQ+ community has been banned as “extremist,” some parents are paying thugs to abduct their queer sons and daughters, forcing them into secure private centers to “cure” them with so-called conversion therapy.

Some of these young people are fleeing the country, looking for safety in the West.

Former residents say conditions behind high concrete walls are like small unregulated prisons, designed for alcoholics, drug addicts, or people whose families see them as problems.

Many were tricked or abducted, then held for months. They recounted being beaten, humiliated or forced to read out confessions that they were destructive and selfish because of their “addiction” to their sexual or gender identity — mimicking rigid programs designed to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

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