Children were kept in isolation for 5 days: cruel punishments and blatant violations in an orphanage in Lviv region
Kyiv • UNN
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets found violations of children's rights in the Lviv RMA shelter, where minors are illegally held in isolation. The institution also operates without a medical license and violates the terms of children's stay.
In the children's shelter of the Lviv RMA Children's Service, children are placed in an isolation ward as punishment. It is known that children have been there for 5 days. This was reported by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets, UNN reports.
Children are placed in the isolation facility as punishment. There are reports of children being there for 5 days. The administration of the institution explained this by saying that the children were faking illness to avoid going to school. However, it is unacceptable to leave minors behind closed doors without round-the-clock supervision
He also said that many children stay in the shelter for more than the prescribed period of 90 days. Some have been living in the institution for more than 2 years.
Doctors in the shelter practice medicine without a license, which is a gross violation. The children's services of Lviv and Zaporizhzhia RMAs (where children with IDP status were displaced from) do not show any interest in coordinating their actions in favor of children
In addition, he noted that the deinstitutionalization reform is being ignored: only 4 children out of 44 who left the shelter in 2023 were placed in foster families. The rest of the children were sent to institutionalized facilities, not to families.
"The report on the violations has already been received by the relevant state authorities. In addition, I have made submissions to the Lviv and Zaporizhzhia RMAs that require these authorities to eliminate the identified violations within a month. I demand immediate intervention and elimination of these violations. I cannot allow children's rights to be neglected!" - emphasized the Ombudsman.
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According to Lubinets, a monitoring visit to the children's shelter of the Lviv RMA's Children's Service took place last week.
His colleagues, together with representatives of civil society organizations (DIYMO, RIDNI, Golosy Dityey, and SOS Children's Villages), discovered blatant violations of children's rights.
