Current Ukrainian policies on pensions for people in the war-affected Donetsk and Luhansk regions are unfair, discriminatory and potentially damaging to the health of senior citizens, a prominent human rights watchdog said Wednesday
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th July, 2019) Current Ukrainian policies on pensions for people in the war-affected Donetsk and Luhansk regions are unfair, discriminatory and potentially damaging to the health of senior citizens, a prominent human rights watchdog said Wednesday."Current policies require pension-eligible Ukrainians living in the affected parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to register as internally displaced persons in government-controlled areas, and to physically cross into those areas at least once every 60 days. These crossings ... are difficult for older people ... Those who cannot leave their homes due to poor health or mobility issues cannot access their pensions at all," Hugh Williamson, the director of Europe and Central Asian Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), announced in his open letter to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy.
He went on to explain that such policies were discriminatory due to the "unnecessary and unjustified hardship and burden" they put on elderly people, who, in turn, become more at risk of losing their pensions or ruining their health.
He proposed a number of measures to mitigate the situation, such as eliminating the practice of linking people's pensions to their displacement status, creating more crossing points and improving their quality, enforcing existing court decisions on the matter, which require arrears to be paid to people who were denied their pensions.
Since the beginning of the armed conflict in east Ukraine, the situation there has been described by observers as a humanitarian catastrophe. During his election campaign, then-candidate Zelenskyy expressed his desire to de-escalate the conflict and achieve peace in Donetsk and Luhansk.
