Ukrainian refugees living in EU forced to travel back for abortions, study warns
Multiple media outlets reported on a new study published by a collective of nine human rights organizations, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, which found that women who have fled the invasion of Ukraine face severe barriers in accessing reproductive health care and support services for gender-based violence.
Read the complete report here.
Titled Care in Crisis: Failures to guarantee the sexual and reproductive health and rights of refugees from Ukraine in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the report documents the multiple barriers that refugees experience when trying to access care in these four countries—including legal restrictions, cost barriers, information shortfalls, poor quality care, and lack of basic services. In some cases, refugees have been forced to return to Ukraine just to obtain care.
Leah Hoctor, the Center’s senior regional director for Europe, pointed out that the lack of access to timely health and support services only exacerbates the harm that refugees have suffered from the invasion of Ukraine.
“The European Union has promised to provide refugees from Ukraine with sanctuary and care,” Hoctor told The Independent. “Yet women from Ukraine who are now in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia often experience a very different reality when they need sexual and reproductive healthcare. Instead of care and protection, they regularly face an obstacle course of restrictions, confusion, stigma and discrimination.”
Read the articles here:
- “Study: Poland does not provide Ukrainian women with sufficient reproductive care,” Euractiv, 05.17.23
- “Ukrainian refugees living in EU forced to travel back for abortions, study warns,” The Independent, 05.18.23
- “Sexual assault victims from Ukraine face challenges in Poland and Hungary, report says,” Euronews, 05.19.23
- “Ukrainian refugees living in EU forced to travel back for abortions, study warns,” U.S. Times Post, 05.19.23
- “Morning Health Care: Abortion and Ukraine,” Politico, 05.22.23
- “Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia struggle to access abortion,” Slovak Spectator, 05.26.23
- “Injured Ukrainian women without help in Poland: The devastating results of the report,” ABC Zdrowie, 06.06.23
