Report: Impact of Russia’s Invasion on Ukraine on People with Learning Disabilities
With Yuliia Klepets (l) and Raisa Kravchenko (centre) of the VGO Coalition in Ukraine,
The international community must do more to address the human rights emergency affecting people with learning disabilities in war-torn Ukraine.
I travelled to Ukraine to meet Yuliia Klepets (l) and Raisa Kravchenko (centre) of the VGO Coalition in Ukraine, which represents 73 charities and over 9,000 people with learning disabilities and their families.
In conjunction with the Friends of Ukraine UK and Inclusion Europe, we have published a report which lays bare the extent to which disabled people have been disproportionately impacted by the brutalities of war.
More than 250,000 people in Ukraine have learning disabilities, however:
· Community support networks have collapsed, leaving families isolated
· Displacement and housing destruction have driven thousands back into institutions
· Healthcare and rehabilitation systems have crumbled, cutting off access to medicines and therapies
Having previously worked for Enable, and through the disability charity’s work with Inclusion Europe I first learned of the devastating toll taken on disabled people and their families in Ukraine since Russia invaded.
Many Ukrainian civilians chose to leave for their safety, but leaving their homes was not an option for thousands of people with learning disabilities.
Dependent on their families and professional support from carers or care homes, they had to stay. Missile and drone attacks are terrifying for anyone, but particularly for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
The report illustrates a marked 45% increase in new admissions to residential institutions in Ukraine from 2021 – up from 3,130 to 4,533 people.
That has increased year-on-year, with 5,200 admissions in 2022, and 5,507 in 2023.
Before the invasion the VGO Coalition was campaigning to move more disabled people out of care institutions and into community support – this invasion has meant there are actually more disabled people in institutional care than before.
This in turn leads to more vulnerability, given Russian authorities are deliberately abducting young people in institutions and putting them up for forced adoption; an appalling practice highlighted earlier this year by my colleague Johanna Baxter MP in her report ‘Returning the stolen Children of Ukraine’.”
The report highlights case studies, including:
Vitaliy Zegelev, a man with learning disabilities who refused to leave his apartment for three years because he was terrified by air-raid sirens. This took a toll on his health, leading to his premature death, aged 38.
Mykola and Anastasiya Volodin,who were abducted from Kherson Children’s Home and taken to Crimea; their identities rewritten. Thanks to a report in the New York Times, they were reunited with their parents, but Anastasiya died shortly afterwards, aged six.
Raisa Kravchenko, a leading advocate of deinstitutionalisation and mother of Oleksiy, a 38-year-old man with behavioural difficulties, was called during a bombing-raid to collect her son from his care home. The family spent 25 days sheltering in a basement without food, electricity or gas.
The disabled community in Ukraine is at breaking point and many are beyond that as a result of Putin’s invasion. These stories are a warning: without strong international safeguards, disabled children will continue to be among the first to be lost – and the last to be found.
NGOs and charities are doing all they can to alleviate the situation and £25 million funding from the UK Government for the SPIRIT programme is welcome, as this will provide support for the recovery of communities in Ukraine, including for disabled children.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the international community needs to do more to support Ukraine to address a human rights emergency for disabled people as a direct result of the conflict.
The report makes a number of recommendations, including:
· Ensuring any financial penalties levied at Russia provide a contribution to funding community support for people with learning disabilities
· The Council of Europe’s Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine must specifically address harms caused to people with learning disabilities and hold those responsible accountable
· Seek to prioritise funding to counter the rise in institutionalisation of people with learning disabilities.
I hope the report will convince the UK Parliament to consider what more can be done to support disabled people in Ukraine affected by the invasion.
If community-based care and support is not revived and funded, thousands risk lifelong confinement.
Above all this report makes one thing clear: over 250,000 people with learning disabilities in Ukraine cannot wait for peace to have their rights respected. Their rights are part of the fight for peace itself.
