Disabled children are being abused and neglected in institutions across Ukraine, UN experts have warned. The human rights officials said the war had made their situation even worse and called on the Ukrainian government to right its "historic wrongs".

Fourteen-year-old Serhii Sorokopud is still haunted by what happened when Russian tanks rolled into his village five months ago. He lifts his T-shirt to show the deep scars across his back -- a reminder of a trauma both hidden and visible.

Institutional rearing negatively impacts the development of children's social skills and executive functions (EF). However, little is known about whether childhood social skills mediate the effects of the foster care intervention (FCG) and foster caregiving quality following early institutional rearing on EF and social skills in adolescence. Participants included abandoned children from Romanian institutions

Luiza Baloh left her home in Dnipro, central Ukraine, in March. Fleeing the constant sound of explosions, she and her five children came to the Czech Republic hoping to find refuge. Instead, they found themselves behind a barbed wire fence in a repurposed immigration detention center that was, she says, dirty and full of strangers, some of whom were aggressive towards her and her children.

Coverage of the conflict in Ukraine has been a stark reminder of the pace and extent to which war turns lives upside down. The terrifying experience of conflict sees people turning to loved ones and places that are familiar and comforting. Children are no different. And yet, even before the war in Ukraine started on 24 February, for over 100,000 Ukrainian children the familiar wasn’t a family environment, but an institution.

In July, Russian mortars rained down on a psychiatric home in northern Ukraine, while dozens of elderly and disabled residents were sleeping.

Flames soon swept through the facility’s dining room, and its dormitory and administration buildings were wrecked. Miraculously, only three people were injured. But it marks the latest in a series of deadly attacks in which some of Ukraine’s most vulnerable have been caught up in a savage conflict far beyond their control.

There was nothing obviously untoward about the woman who approached the Palanca border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova with a 15-year-old boy she said was her nephew. But something about the pair just seemed odd. The boy, in particular, appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable.

There was nothing obviously untoward about the woman who approached the Palanca border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova with a 15-year-old boy she said was her nephew. But something about the pair just seemed odd. The boy, in particular, appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable.

The Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. claims hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including children, are being forcefully deported to Russia.

In 2021 and 2023 Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC) completed a household survey of children and caregivers, in demonstration countries Guatemala, Kenya and Moldova, to understand their experience of CTWWC services, the protective factors in their families, and the status of child well-being. Part of CTWWC’s evaluations, the resulting findings are designed to help CTWWC and other care reform actors to understand the successes and challenges of reintegration from residential care and the provision of family strengthening support.