Ukraine failing to ensure right of citizens in occupied territories to social protection – report

The residents of temporarily occupied territories are deprived of their right to social protection until they become the internally displaced persons or until these territories come back under the control of Ukraine.

This is stated in the report “Monitoring of implementation of the right to social protection of internally displaced persons”, prepared by Ukrainian Charitable Foundation “East-SOS”.

The human rights defenders specify that the residents of the occupied territories get an opportunity to restore their social benefits, including pensions, or to apply for their appointment only after they receive an IDP status.

“In fact, this contradicts the guidelines of the United Nations on the issue of internal displacement, prohibiting, inter alia, forced displacement, since such a situation makes people to move only because the state has ceased to pay, for example, pensions, which are the only source for the existence of the elderly, persons with disabilities residing in the temporarily occupied territories,” the report says.

The human rights activists cited as an example a pensioner residing in the temporarily occupied town of Kirove in Donetsk region, who has not registered as an internally displaced person.

Oleksandr works at the mine “Komsomolets Donbasa”, which is located on the uncontrolled territory. However, the company itself is registered in the government-controlled territory,

After the Ukrainian legislation in November 2014 established a mandatory registration as IDPs for the residents of the temporarily uncontrolled territories to be able to get social benefits, Oleksandr has not been paid pension.

Oleksandr says he does not plan to become an internally displaced person and move to the government-controlled territory of Ukraine, because he has a house and a job in Kirove.

As a reminder, according to the Social Policy Ministry of Ukraine, 1 million 681 thousand 723 IDPs were registered in Ukraine as of October 17.