A BBC investigation reveals maltreatment of children and adults in institutions.
Warning: This report contains images and details that could be considered shocking.
Vasyl Velychko was tied to a bench for hours on a hot day, and despite his cries, no one left him. The 18-year-old is one of thousands of disabled people living in orphanages in Ukraine.
BBC News provided access to five institutions and witnessed widespread abuse and mistreatment, including restrained youth and adults, who were kept in cradles for years.
Human rights researchers say Ukraine should not be admitted to the European Union until these institutions are closed. Before the war with Russia, the Ukrainian government claimed it would reform the system.
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Vasyl has epilepsy and a learning disability. He lives in an orphanage near the city of Chernivtsi in southwestern Ukraine.
She’s wearing diapers and rocking back and forth between long, high-pitched cries, but the staff doesn’t respond. They are tired, they work hard, and it is clear that it is easier and more acceptable to take care of children and teenagers by restraining them.
The influx of people evacuated from the east of the country further strained the system, but the way people like Vasyl were treated in Ukrainian institutions predates the Russian occupation.
There is another young man next to Vasyl. Her hands are tied with the sleeves of her blouse. His empty eyes are far away, and a pool of urine has formed around him.
These disabled children are two of the 100,000 youth and children living in orphanages in Ukraine. Many are not even orphans. Most have families, but they live in these places due to a lack of community support and service.
Vasyl’s family felt they had no choice but to appoint him. They tried to give him a diagnosis when he was very young to help him get the support he needed.
They went to a neurosurgeon in the UK, but the poor health and social care system made it difficult for the family to care for him at home due to his frequent seizures and aggression.
Finally, at the age of five, local officials said that the best place for him would be an institution.
“It’s very difficult to have a child with a disability,” says Vasyl’s mother, Maryna, holding her son’s hand gently. He doesn’t question or seem bothered that Vasyl is connected.
Image: BBC NEWS
“I’m proud to be Ukrainian, but we need more support from the state,” he continues. “If we lived in England, our son would probably live with us.”
Maryna says the first few years of visiting Vasyl were difficult. “We used to go home crying” – but now they’ve learned to live with the situation.
Ukraine is the country with the highest number of children living in institutions in Europe. Victims of the Soviet-era system that facilitated the process of parents handing over their children to the state. In most Ukrainian society, there was and still is the belief that children with disabilities are better cared for in an institution.
Neighboring Romania has closed many of its orphanages since the children were found to be living in shocking conditions following the 1989 revolution, but in Ukraine, about 250 children a day were admitted to institutions before the Russian invasion in February.
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A network of around 700 institutions receives more than US$120 million (about R$640 million) per year from the State and employs 68,000 employees.
The Ukrainian government has recognized that the institutionalization system needs to change and has promised a number of reforms over the past few years. Thousands of “orphans” began to be transferred to foster families until the war stopped the process. But the plans no longer included people with disabilities.
The Ukrainian government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
Eric Rosenthal, CEO (executive director) of the human rights group Disability Rights International (DRI), says people with disabilities are now a commodity in “disability factories”. He says he visited hundreds of these institutions and was always shocked and devastated by what he found.
We visited another institution about an hour’s drive from the orphanage where Vasyl lived. There, disabled men aged 20-30 live in cradles.
They rarely get out of their cribs, even to eat. Employees feed them from chopsticks with spoons.
Rosenthal points to the slender, deformed ankles of one of the men and the visible ribs of a young man as signs of “lifelong malnutrition.” He says war cannot be used as an excuse for such inhumane care, as people with disabilities have been neglected for decades.
Next to the man, Eric comments, “he’s dying slowly in this bed.”
Image: BBC NEWS
Wooden beds are lined up side by side. The brightly colored walls contrast with the desolate life of these young people. They’re not trying to get away – they’re just desperate for some attention.
In the next room, Oleh has been lying in bed for years. He was 43 years old and was referred to the institution when he was still a child.
Image: BBC NEWS
He has cerebral palsy, a condition that affects movement and coordination. With proper care, people with cerebral palsy can live a full and independent life.
Oleh understands everything about the world around him, and his face lights up when he sees DRI researcher Halyna Kurylo. She knows him from his last visit seven years ago.
Oleh greets him with a warm smile and introduces us. He expresses surprise and excitement when he learns we are journalists, smiling and asking our names.
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Halyna grabs her withered arm and says her poor physical condition clearly shows that she spends most of her time in bed. “I worry about the potential he didn’t live up to because he’s been here his whole life,” she says.
Before the war, Ukraine was already one of the poorest countries in Europe. According to Mykola Sukholytkyi, director of the institution where Oleh lives, poverty and the lack of support for struggling families contribute to the belief that these facilities are necessary.
“It’s better for disabled children to live here and not with their families,” she says. “Instead of being in dysfunctional families where they can’t get care or food, they can enjoy all the basic needs here.”
Billions of dollars in international aid sent to Ukraine during the war should also be used to close orphanages, support families to care for their children, and build a disability-accepting community, Rosenthal said.
“We know that orphanages don’t have to exist,” he said.
Rosenthal fears that some of that money will be spent on the maintenance of institutions and that after the war ends “international attention to Ukraine will cease and the orphanages will remain as they are”.
After a long and hot day in the orphanage’s garden, it’s time for Vasyl to say goodbye to his parents. He is still connected and keeps shouting.
After leaving, Maryna says she’s “very grateful to the institution.” But she adds: “Our children with disabilities should not be hidden from society behind these high walls.”
– This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-62330989.
source: Noticias
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