One year of war: persons with disabilities in Ukraine

24.02.2023

EDF

One year ago, on 24 February 2022, Russia escalated its occupation in Eastern Ukraine to a full-scale invasion of the country. The war resulted in the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II, counting over 11 million Ukrainians displaced by the war.

In Ukraine, before the start of the war, over 2.7 million persons with disabilities were registered. While disaggregated data on persons with disabilities leaving the country is not available, the UN Refugees Agency estimates that, as of July 2022, 13% of the families fleeing Ukraine had at least one member with a disability.

Since March 2022, EDF has been working with 12 partners across Eastern Europe to respond to the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. The programme, funded by CBM International, has reached 29,559 persons as of January 2023. Out of the 7,563, we were able to gather disaggregated data for, 55% are persons with disabilities, 53% are female, and 23% are children. The project work not only aims to address the immediate needs of persons with disabilities but to influence the wider humanitarian community and build the strength of the disability movement across the region in the long-term.

The rights of persons with disabilities in Ukraine

The war disproportionately affected persons with disabilities in Ukraine. They face life-threatening barriers, such as the lack of accessible shelter, lack of inclusive evacuation plans and humanitarian corridors, and lack of access to information and healthcare. The situation is particularly concerning when it comes to the groups in need of more support, including children with disabilities and those placed in residential institutions.

Our partners in Ukraine, the National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities, the League of the Strong and the Kharkiv Institute of Social Research, have produced the first summary of a monitoring report that is being worked on. This document gives an overview of the situation with the rights of people with disabilities one year after the invasion. It highlights numerous challenges that persons with disabilities have faced since the start of the war, many of which require an increased adjustment of emergency services to adhere to accessibility and inclusion standards.

Report’s recommendations

The report also proposes recommendations for Ukrainian central authorities to address the most critical challenges that persons with disabilities are facing:

Adopt the minimum requirements for the accessibility of modular houses and shelters for persons with disabilities and meaningfully consult organisations of persons with disabilities in plans for reconstructing Ukraine;
Provide alternative formats of information for informing people in emergencies and ensure accessibility of websites and other digital resources to people with disabilities;
Ensure that persons with disabilities have equal access to all humanitarian services addressing basic needs;
Provide accessible transfer services for court proceedings and individual support to guarantee access to the “Electronic Court” system;
Consider the requirements of children within the organisation of the educational process and the rebuilding and restoring of educational infrastructure;
Implement the reform of Consolidate the State’s efforts to deinstitutionalise and create social services at the community level.

Challenges for persons with disabilities

The lack of inclusion in humanitarian response is firstly translating to a common problem recorded across Ukraine with the inaccessibility of shelter and temporary modular housing.

Additionally, persons with disabilities in Ukraine often do not have access to vital information due to the lack of use of Braille, sign language and subtitles and easy language for socially important messages, with tangible effects on persons with disabilities: for example, people with hearing impairments could not be swiftly alerted of incoming air raids.

The processes of the administration of justice in Ukraine and ensuring the right to judicial protection for people with disabilities have also been affected by the war. With many courts now in occupied territories and several more either temporarily closed, damaged or destroyed, persons with disabilities applying to the court are exposed to long and dangerous travels that add to the already systemic issues with the quality and duration of court proceedings.

Impact on children with disabilities

Due to the war, access to education has been severely curtailed for children with disabilities. Distance learning does not cover the needs of all children with learning support needs. In addition, facilities for internally displaced people have limited technical and methodological resources and opportunities to ensure quality education for children with learning support needs.

The impact of the war in Ukraine has been particularly critical for children with disabilities. While migration, child protection and support systems are in place, internally displaced and refugee children with disabilities tend to fall between the cracks. EDF has reported on the situation of children with disabilities, focusing on:

Ukrainian children with disabilities and their families seeking refuge
Foster families seeking refuge abroad together with children with disabilities
The evacuation of children with disabilities from institutions
The risks and realities of inappropriate and illegal adoption

Impact on Persons with disabilities living in institutions

After the start of the war, the lack of clear and comprehensive regulations on the evacuation and rescue of persons with disabilities has also reflected on those living in residential institutions. Many institutions ended up in occupied territories or were damaged or destroyed.

The lack of clear regulations and appropriate resources has also affected the quality of care and service provision for residents who were evacuated, causing overcrowding in the structures hosting the evacuees, understaffing as personnel was not displaced together with the residents, and lack of medical care for one in three residents.

Despite the negative impact of the institutional approach to rehabilitation and support of people with disabilities, and the life-threatening conditions that persons living in institutions have been exposed to from the beginning of the war, evidence shows that Ukrainian authorities are engaged in the reconstruction of those institutions along the front line. In Ukraine and in the rest of Europe, EDF is campaigning for a ban to the construction and renovation of residential institutions in favour of a transition to community-based care.

In an interview with BBC Morning, EDF Vice-President Gunta Anca stated that after the escalation of the war “we are talking more about social services: people [with disabilities] do need social services, they do need support in the community to feel independent”

Impact on women with disabilities

During the war, the already high risk of discrimination and violence that women encounter can be further increased for women with disabilities. Phillipa Tucker, Coordinator Eastern and Central Europe at EDF, reflected on the many layers of complexity and challenges that women with disabilities from Ukraine experience, highlighting how “women with disabilities know what they need and are capable of expressing what they need and of working with others to develop working solutions.”

Inclusive reconstruction

Persons with disabilities do not only need individual humanitarian services or support but the incorporation of their basic needs in general plans at all stages of the humanitarian response and reconstruction.

Larysa Bayda, Director of the National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities (NAPD), said: “We have a victory ahead and a long way to rebuild our country. Today we are thinking how to ensure disability inclusion in all national and international plans and strategies and how public organizations of people with disabilities can contribute to these processes”

In July, with SUSTENTO – the Umbrella Organisation of Persons with Disabilities in Latvia – we outlined our recommendations for the Ukrainian government and the wider humanitarian community to support the reconstruction of an inclusive and resilient society.

The document calls for the “prioritisation of accessibility and Universal Design from the beginning” in the reconstruction strategy, which must be developed in “full consultation of civil society, including meaningful participation of persons with disabilities through their representative organisations”.

With our partners, we are working to ensure that these standards are met. According to Daria Sydorenko, Director of the League of the Strong, in times of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started last year, accommodating people with disabilities is an additional challenge. The League of the Strong researched and analyzed accessibility issues of modular towns – temporary accommodation solutions for people forced to leave their homes due to war.”

Heimo Duttle, Project Development Consultant at CBM International, said: “Due to ongoing conflict in Ukraine, millions of people, including Internally Displaced Persons, returnees and hosting communities, are in serious need for help and support. CBM is working with partners to make sure that affected people, especially persons with disabilities and their representing organisations (ODPs), are supported and not left behind in response and recovery.”