A Vinnytsa couple with disabilities has come up against outrageous examples of discrimination. The husband and wife, who both have second group disability status, decided to adopt a child, but were stopped at the outset.

A Vinnytsa couple with disabilities has come up against outrageous examples of discrimination. The husband and wife, who both have second group disability status, decided to adopt a child, but were stopped at the outset. . 

It should be noted that before their marriage both had children from previous marriages, and even grandchildren. The epilepsy which has got in the way of adoption did not prevent them being caring parents.

However the children grew up and left home and the couple decided to take a child deprived of parental care and love from a children’s home. Yet the state, in the form of the Health Ministry, got in the way of family happiness. The Ministry found epilepsy to be an illness preventing adoption of children.

The couple do not agree. After all the Convention on the Rights of the Disabled which Ukraine has ratified, stipulates that each disabled person has the right to a family and adoption. Depriving people who already have children of the right to adopt is stupid. After all, following the Health Ministry’s logic, the parents do not have the right to be parents.

The couple turned for help to the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union which has asked the well-known law firm Astopovl Lawyers to take up the case. Members of the firm will defend the couple’s rights free of charge.

The lawyers believe that the case has good prospects in the European Court of Human Rights and will demonstrate Ukraine’s real attitude to people with disabilities.