CENTRAL ASIA: Disabled child institutionalisation continues

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ANKARA, 5 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - The placement of children with disabilities in institutions remains problematic throughout much of Central Asia, a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has revealed.

"The numbers of children with disabilities placed in institutions are low, but there has been an increase over the past decade," Marta Santos Pais, director of UNICEF's Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) in Florence, said from Geneva, citing figures from 1990 to 2002.

Pais explained that in 1990, there had been 13,900 children in institutional care in Uzbekistan, while in 2002 that figure had risen to 16,000.

"Clearly there is an increasing demand for institutional care of these children," the UNICEF official said.

In Central Asia, there had been very minimal investment in social services for children and the quality of care might not provide the conditions for early detection of child disability, she explained.

"We may continue to be confronted with a prevalent resistance by families in acknowledging child disability, fearing the stigma of society," Pais continued.

"These figures may give a hint of what the true reality may be," the agency official said, noting, however, that the majority of children were kept with their families and were being supported within the families.

"That in itself is positive. There are still strong family structures that do play a role," Pais offered.

Such incidents were not confined to the five states of Central Asia, however.

A carry-over of the former Soviet practice of “child abandonment”, according to the IRC's new report released on Wednesday – ‘Children and Disability in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)/Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Baltic States’ - the total number of children registered as disabled across the region's 27 countries had tripled from about 500,000 in 1990 to 1.5 million in 2000.

An additional 1 million children were thought to be unregistered, most of whom continued to face their lives in segregated institutions, suffering from stigma and discrimination, a UNICEF statement read.

For decades, vast numbers of children with disabilities had been placed in institutions and this practice had continued during the post-Soviet transition period. By 2002, some 317,000 children with disabilities were living in residential institutions. Cut off from their families and community from an early age, often segregated in large facilities and special schools, the prospect for these children was to graduate to an institution for adults and to face a pattern of denial of human rights, the statement added.

But while children with disabilities had become more visible since the beginning of transition and attitudes towards them and their families were changing, many of them remained simply “written off” from society, Pais claimed.

"Yet, as called for by UNICEF, every child has the right to grow up in a family environment and in conditions that ensure respect for their dignity, promote self-reliance and active participation in social life," the UNICEF official said.

But the challenges of making that happen are great, including: a change in public attitudes; measures to boost family incomes so that children could stay with their families; greater participation of parents in decisions affecting children; resources for families and the community; and changes to the physical environments that exacerbate the impact of disability.

"Giving parents and communities the power to make their own decisions is, in itself, a valuable contribution to consolidate democracy in this region," Maria Calivis, regional director for UNICEF CEE/CIS and the Baltics, said, adding: "It means giving a voice to those most affected, backed by the necessary decentralised, local resources."

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