British broadcasting company BBC visited in the summer (switch to another service) in five institutions for the treatment of disabled persons in the southern part of Ukraine. The journalists found, among other things, teenagers tied to benches and malnourished children.
In one facility, they met an 18-year-old boy who was tied to a bench and bounced around screaming for hours.
The facility also receives disabled people fleeing war. The staff is tired and overworked.
The BBC also visited a facility where disabled adult men live in children’s beds. They rarely leave them, even to eat. They are fed from between the side bars of the bed with a spoon.
The BBC interviewed the heads of some of these facilities, who said they could not cope with the number of people fleeing the fighting.
The war and the evacuations have worsened the situation of the disabled and nursing homes in Ukraine. However, according to the BBC, the problems are not new.
In total, there are about 700 facilities in Ukraine. They are called orphanages, although the vast majority of those who live in them have families.
According to the BBC, the background is a Soviet-era system in which parents were encouraged to give their disabled children to the state.
In Ukraine, many still think they can get better care in institutions.
According to the BBC, institutions are unable to meet the needs of disabled people.
The foundation: “This cannot be accepted at all”
Chairman Amu Urhonen The Abilis Foundation is not surprised by the BBC’s information. Abilis is a development cooperation foundation founded by disabled people.
According to Urhonen, similar messages have been reported by Ukrainian disability organizations for some time. He points out that wars and crises often bring structural problems to the fore and exacerbate them.
– Yes, we know that there have been big problems with disabled people’s rights in Ukraine. This kind of treatment of disabled people sounds contrary to human rights treaties and old-fashioned, and this kind of thing cannot be accepted at all, he says.
The BBC already reported in May that, according to a report by the human rights organization Disability Rights International, severely disabled children in Ukraine have been forgotten and abandoned in institutions that are unable to take care of the children. According to the organization, some of the children have been tied to their beds in nursing homes and the children’s homes have been overcrowded.
Some of the disabled children have remained in Ukraine alone, when the children’s families have fled the war to neighboring countries.
Urhonen points out that Ukraine has ratified the UN Convention on Disability. He says it is clear that rejecting disabled people in institutions is not part of it.
Disabled persons are in a difficult position in war.
– Evacuating severely disabled people from one place to another is really difficult. Traveling can be very difficult for them, and the lack of accessible means of transport in Ukraine is glaring, Urhonen points out.
Also the head of child protection Rebecca Smith The international organization of Save the Children tells that the BBC’s revelations are unfortunately not surprising.
– We know that children in institutions are the most vulnerable.
The organization has been worried, especially because of the war, about how children are doing in institutions.
– The situation certainly varies significantly from institution to institution, but in general, children in institutional care in Ukraine are in a dangerous situation. A lot of staff have left and there are problems in the supply chains, says Smith.
The UN has also expressed its concern
According to UN experts, children with disabilities are treated badly and neglected in institutions in Ukraine. The UN is also concerned about children who have been sent home from institutions after an attack without proper support. The risk is that they will end up on the street or become victims of human trafficking.
The UN published about it statement (you switch to another service) last week after the BBC reported on the facilities’ grievances. It says that it fully understands the conditions of war and the situation where difficult choices must be made.
– But the situation must not continue indefinitely, the UN statement says.
Although disabled children have been sent back to their families, they have also remained in institutions.
The UN points out that children have had to be moved from one institution to another because of the war, and the condition of those who remain in the institutions has deteriorated.
According to the UN, problems such as abuse and neglect have already been known. The children’s situation has been made even more difficult by the fact that their families do not necessarily know their whereabouts and cannot contact them.
This also worries Save the Children organization.
– We have thought about how to get them together with their families, because the child is safer that way than in an institution, says Rebecca Smith.
Some of those living in institutions have also been taken to neighboring countries such as Romania and Moldova, which have made progress in getting out of the institution system.
However, UN experts say according to the BBC that they have evidence that Ukraine would allow these countries to help only if the children are kept in institutional conditions.
When the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu fell in Romania at the end of 1989, it turned out that 150,000 to 200,000 children were living in miserable conditions in orphanages across the country. The BBC notes that Romania has since closed many of its orphanages.
“In Ukraine, disability has been seen above all as a medical condition”
In recent years, the Ukrainian government has promised several reforms and admitted that its institutional system must change.
UN expert Gerard Quinn says, according to the BBC, that a clear commitment is needed from the Ukrainian government to end the institutional system.
Rebecca Smith of the Save the Children organization also points out that in the past in Ukraine, disability has been seen primarily as a medical condition and the best solution has been to place a disabled child in a special institution.
According to Smith, this way of thinking is changing, but the change will take time.
– It is very easy to think of children as one group, but we are trying to get the administration and others to see that each child is his own person, who has his own opinions, rights and needs.
It is important, for example, to support the fact that the family can take care of the child, he says.
Smith believes that the Ukrainian authorities are doing their best under difficult circumstances.
– They have decided that they want to become a member of the EU. The EU has always been in favor of dismantling the institutional system. This means that Ukraine must continue its reforms, and they have been cooperating. We really hope that the reform process will continue, because the organizations have been working for it for a very long time.
The Finnish expert does not believe that the situation will improve quickly
According to Amu Urhonen, disability organizations also hope to get rid of housing in institutions.
He points out that the EU’s position is based on human rights treaties, according to which disabled people should be allowed to live where others live.
However, Amu Urhonen does not believe that the situation will improve as long as the war continues – or even quickly afterwards.
– I know that from that [laitosjärjestelmän lopettamisesta] has been discussed in Ukraine, but the idea has not gained as much power as one would hope.
According to Urhonen, the fact that there is a good disability movement in Ukraine that works to improve the situation gives hope.
Disability organizations hope above all for better legislation. However, Urhonen points out that Ukraine’s chances of improving the legislation are weak in a war situation.
Below you can watch an episode of ‘s 8 minutes program, which discusses how disabled people are taken into account in the midst of a crisis (July 28, 2022):
* You can discuss the topic until Wednesday, August 17, 2022 at 11 p.m.