Chair and members of the committee, I am delighted to have such a great opportunity to share with you our regional humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
The Right to Protection is a Ukrainian not-for-profit organization operating in close partnership with the global NGO HIAS. R2P protects the human rights of vulnerable populations, the internally displaced, refugees, the stateless, and those at risk of statelessness.
According to the Ukrainian minister of social policy, at the end of June 2016 there were almost 1.8 million registered internally displaced persons from Donbass and Crimea. The most pressing problem facing the internally displaced is housing. Although the state is legally obliged to provide accommodation to people for the first six months of displacement, the available social housing and collective reception centres have been limited. The latter have only managed to accommodate between 30,000 and 40,000 of the most vulnerable people.
Another acute issue facing IDPs is employment. In the regions with a high concentration of IDPs—for instance, government-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions—the labour market was tight even before the conflict. With increased economic pressure resulting from the crisis, the employment situation is deteriorating further. Discrimination is also common in the workplace, with many job postings openly stating that people from Donbass will not be considered.
From February through June 2016, the government suspended pensions and social benefit payments to about 600,000 internally displaced people and those living in non-government-controlled areas, without prior notification. The prolonged suspension of payments has had dire effects on those individuals for whom these payments were the sole source of income. According to R2P monitoring, 85% of IDPs interviewed were significantly impacted by the suspension of their social benefits and/or pensions. This situation has had a particularly detrimental effect on persons with disabilities, reduced mobility, and/or poor health. According to the government, it has recently resumed pension payments to 80,000; however, this means that around 500,000 Ukrainian citizens previously receiving a pension no longer do so and are presumably living in poverty.
The Government of Ukraine has linked the payment of pensions, which is a constitutional right, with the payment of IDP social benefits. The social benefits to IDPs are about $46 Canadian dollars per month, generally inadequate to meet housing costs or other expenses such as the transportation of children to school.
The guiding principles on internal displacement are meant to ensure that displaced persons are able to move freely during displacement. However, restrictions on the right to liberty of movement continue in Ukraine. At the end of June, crossing the contact line was dangerous. Because of the hot weather, many people spent hours in lines under the burning sun without access to shade or water. Journalists reported on the death of elderly persons waiting in line near the checkpoints at Zaitseve and Stanytsia Luhanska.
Electronic permits for crossing checkpoints between government-controlled areas and non-government-controlled areas are required, but there are many people unable to complete an Internet application because of a lack of skills or unavailability of computers.
Overall, people living in non-government-controlled areas continue to experience problems accessing essential services and adequate social assistance. In order to receive social benefits, people must either relocate to the government-controlled areas or regularly travel across the contact line. Some people—for example, unemployed adults of working age and families with lots of children—have become increasingly vulnerable due to lack of social benefits and exclusion from humanitarian assistance.
According to monitoring, 93% of IDPs interviewed who report residing in non-government-controlled areas were significantly impacted by the suspension of their social benefit payments or pensions. The majority, 79% of them, reported that they receive pensions from the Ukrainian government and the pension is either their main or only source of income.
The situation of people residing on both sides of the contact line remains especially dire. Their access to humanitarian and medical aid is impeded due to security reasons and the ban on cargo deliveries.
R2P monitors report that this situation is critical regarding access to health services in the buffer zones or small towns and villages located close to the contact line. IDPs in the rural areas in the south part of the Donetsk Oblast region, as well as inhabitants of buffer zones, complain about the absence of availability of medical services. No medical facilities or physicians can be found in most villages in the southern part of the Donetsk region along the contact line.
In December 2015, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers adopted a two-year comprehensive state program to support the social adaptation and reintegration of the displaced until 2017, along with an accompanying action plan. The program and the action plan provide a framework for addressing various issues related to internal displacement, including durable solutions; however, in view of economic and financial constraints, no budgetary allocations have yet been made available for the program's implementation.
Initially, the institutional framework under which the government has been operating was complicated by many ministries tasked with supporting IDPs but without any real coordination among them. The Government of Ukraine has recently created the Ministry for the Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine; however, it's too premature to assess the ministry's performance.
Thank you for your attention.