Ukraine's children housed in institutions face 'extreme risks' from war, report warns

Ukrainian children in residential institutions in occupied areas have been forcibly transferred to Russia and separated from their families, while others have suffered traumatic experiences of war and displacement, a Human Rights Watch report has shown.

The 55-page report, “We Must Provide a Family, Not Rebuild Orphanages,” documents risks to children from institutions in areas directly affected by the conflict as well as those evacuated to other areas of Ukraine or to European countries.

Many children in institutions had to shelter for weeks from bombardments in basements without electricity or running water, including children with disabilities. A group of children from an institution in Mariupol did not speak for four days after they were evacuated to Lviv, in March last year, apparently due to trauma, one volunteer said.

The organisation says more than nine in 10 children in Ukraine’s Soviet-era institutions have parents with full parental rights and were institutionalised due to their families’ poverty or difficult life circumstances, or because the child has a disability and institutions were presented to them as the best option.

105,000 Ukrainian children lived in institutions before the war, like this one in eastern Ukraine, pictured in 2014.

According to government figures, Ukraine had more than 105,000 children in institutions before Russia’s invasion a year ago – half of them with disabilities.

When children were evacuated abroad from institutions, some were not registered during the chaotic mass refugee flows of the war’s first weeks, siblings were separated, and children were temporarily unable to get education and social support. The organisation said European countries should forge agreements with Ukraine to uphold the best interest of the child in all cases.

“Ukrainian children who were housed in Soviet-era institutions now face extreme risks due to Russia’s war on Ukraine,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “There needs to be a concerted international effort to identify and return children who were deported to Russia, and Ukraine and its allies should ensure that all children who were or remain institutionalised are identified and provided with support to live with their families and in communities.”

In cases where children remained in institutions and were evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine, often only a handful of institutional staff were evacuated along with children.

Based on Ukrainian government data, 100 institutions that had housed more than 32,000 children before 2022 are in regions under partial or total Russian occupation and which Russia stated that it had annexed in September 2022. It is believed several thousand children have been forcibly transferred to other occupied territories or to Russia.

Russia’s parliament changed laws in May 2022 to enable authorities to give Russian nationality to Ukrainian children, facilitating their guardianship and adoption by Russian families in Russia. A Russian adoption website lists children from Ukrainian regions, and Russian officials have said that hundreds of Ukrainian children have been adopted.

Many eastern European countries historically housed children in orphanages or group homes. However, in recent years, many have moved away from the Communist-era structures.

However, Ukraine, which has retained large Soviet-era homes, insists that children evacuated from institutions must remain together abroad, posing logistical problems for countries that had de-institutionalised. In Poland, where laws prohibit facilities from housing more than 14 children, volunteers had to refurbish old orphanages to accommodate displaced Ukrainian children.