In late April 2022, Disability Rights International (DRI) brought a team of people with disabilities and family activists, including medical and disability service experts, to visit Ukraine’s institutions for children with disabilities. 

This is a video produced by DRI on the investigation. 

Video for DRI PSA Senate Bill for the International Children with Disabilities Protection Act

Disability Rights International is a human rights organization dedicated to protecting the human rights and promoting the full community integration of persons with disabilities worldwide.

This bill represents everything we’ve been working on for over two decades. All children — especially children with disabilities — need our support to live and grow up in a loving family. And they need protection against being placed in orphanages or other institutions.

—   Laurie Ahern, President, Disability Rights International

Warning: Viewers may find some images in this report distressing.

BBC News has gained access to institutions in Ukraine where widespread abuse and mistreatment of disabled people has been uncovered. Around 100,000 children and young people live in these institutions, which pre-date the war with Russia. Human rights investigators say Ukraine should not join the European Union until it closes these institutions. The Ukrainian government has promised a series of reforms over the past few years, acknowledging that its system of institutionalisation needs to change.

30-second PSA for Disability Rights International's (DRI) Worldwide Campaign to End the Institutionalization of Children.

60-second PSA for Disability Rights International's (DRI) Worldwide Campaign to End the Institutionalization of Children

Russia’s War Creates Orphanage Crisis In Ukraine. More than 11 million people have fled Ukraine as a result of Russia’s invasion. But many of most the vulnerable — mentally and physically disabled children — have been left behind.