Human Rights Watch Submission to the UN CRPD on Kazakhstan

30th Session

February 2024

Human Rights Watch[1] welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the “Committee”) in advance of its upcoming review of Kazakhstan. The submission highlights areas of concern that Human Rights Watch hopes will inform the Committee’s consideration of the Kazakhstan government’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD).

This submission relates to articles 5, 7, 10, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, and 30 of the CRPD and proposes issues and questions that Committee members may wish to raise with the government of Kazakhstan during the review.

Human Rights Watch takes into account Kazakhstan’s initial report to the Committee submitted in 2017 (CRPD/C/KAZ/1), and Kazakhstan’s 2021 replies to the List of Issues identified by the Committee (CRPD/C/KAZ/RQ/1, published on July 11, 2023). This submission draws on Human Rights Watch’s research into the right to inclusive education and the rights of children with disabilities living in state residential institutions in Kazakhstan conducted between 2017 and 2019, soon after the state’s initial report.

In March 2019, Human Rights Watch published a 72-page report “On the Margins: Education for Children with Disabilities in Kazakhstan” based on over 150 interviews with children and young adults with disabilities, their families, and disability rights activists showing that Kazakhstan’s education system segregates and isolates children with disabilities.

In July 2019, Human Rights Watch published additional research documenting how children with disabilities living in state residential institutions in Kazakhstan are at risk of physical violence, forced sedation, and neglect.

Children with Disabilities (art. 7), Access to Education (art. 24) and Equality and Non-discrimination (art. 5)

The government of Kazakhstan has committed to ensuring that children with disabilities have access to inclusive education and it has taken the important step of ratifying international human rights treaties enshrining the rights of people with disabilities, including the right of children with disabilities to inclusive, quality education. The government has also introduced legal and policy changes toward an inclusive education system for children with disabilities.

In June 2021, as noted in their reply to the List of Issues, Kazakhstan adopted a new inclusive education law which removed multiple references to the PMPK assessment, a problematic medical and educational exam (more details below), as a prerequisite for enrollment in a mainstream school and introduced new provisions that make it state responsibility to provide children with disabilities with reasonable accommodations. However, the Law on Social and Medical-Pedagogical Support for Children with Disabilities, under article 15-1, subpoint 5, continues to specify that children with disabilities who attend “government education organizations,” do so “in accordance with a PMPK conclusion.” Government education organizations include mainstream schools and kindergartens, as well as special schools and other types of educational facilities. This article appears inconsistent with other amendments introduced in the June 2021 law.

In its response to the List of Issues, the government has claimed “96.58 per cent of children with special educational needs were enrolled in inclusive education settings,” as of 2020. Yet the figures provided by the government pertain to children educated in “special educational organizations” or “special groups or classes in schools,” or who were “homeschooled.” None of these schooling environments is equivalent to a quality, inclusive education in a mainstream school. 

In fact, progress toward genuine inclusive education in practice is slow. The government itself indicates in its response to the List of Issues that a significant percentage of children with disabilities continue to be educated at home, isolated from their peers with teachers’ visits only a few times a week or as few as a few times a month; segregated in special classrooms or groups in mainstream schools; or enrolled in special schools for children with disabilities, which can be located far from their families and communities. Moreover, children with disabilities living in residential institutions for children with disabilities receive very little or no education at all. Experts in Kazakhstan have conveyed to Human Rights Watch that many officials still do not understand how to implement quality, inclusive education or what it means in practice to transform the education system into one that is genuinely inclusive.

In its response to the List of Issues, the government stated that “[t]he country is working to gradually harmonize national legislation with the social and rights-based models of disability derived from the provisions of the Convention.” But Kazakhstan’s approach to educating children with disabilities still focuses heavily on a medical approach.

An expert commission, known as the Psychological-Medical-Pedagogical Consultation (PMPK), has historically been a key barrier to children with disabilities studying in mainstream schools. PMPK commissions, organized under local departments of education or the Ministry of Education and Science, are typically made up of doctors, a speech therapist, psychologist, and other specialists. PMPK commissions would assess children with disabilities and issue a conclusion with a recommendation as to whether a child should study in a mainstream school or in a special school for children with disabilities, or at home, as well as the types of rehabilitation and support services to which the child is entitled.

The PMPK’s conclusion has served as a de facto determination whether a child would be allowed to enroll or continue in a mainstream school or not. This is fundamentally at odds with Kazakhstan’s obligation to guarantee children with disabilities’ right to education on an equal basis with others without discrimination.

Other barriers to inclusive education in Kazakhstan identified in our research included inaccessible buildings, classrooms, and toilets; a lack of trained and qualified staff to teach children with diverse learning needs; and the lack of aides and access to other reasonable accommodations for children with disabilities.

Parents and children also described some situations in which children were denied access to mainstream schools on grounds other than the lack of a PMPK recommendation for a mainstream school. They described how some schools refused admission to children with disabilities simply stating that a child would be unable to learn or cited the lack of specialists to support children with disabilities in school. In other cases, school officials made discriminatory assumptions such as that children with disabilities would engage in disruptive behavior and distract other children from learning.

Aigul Shakibaeva, a human rights defender and the head of the Special Children Rights Initiative, told Human Rights Watch that in 2023, over a dozen parents from across Kazakhstan approached her with complaints that their children with disabilities, enrolled in mainstream schools, were not getting a quality, inclusive education. The parents said that the schools were failing to provide their children reasonable accommodations, such as qualified teachers or aides, or access to specialists. Four of the parents told Shakibaeva that school administrations or PMPK commissions had pressured them to transfer their children from mainstream schools to specialized schools for children with disabilities or education at home.

Human Rights Watch also found while carrying out our research that children with disabilities who attended specialized schools for children with disabilities did not receive a quality education because of a lack of physical accessibility, accessible materials, or teacher training. For some families, particularly those living in rural areas, sending a child to a special school means traveling long distances or requires a child to live at the school full time or during the school week. This results in children’s separation from their families and communities. In addition, at time of research, not all special schools provided children with full secondary education, limiting children’s ability to take university entrance exams, impeding their prospects for future employment and independent living.

Kazakh law allows children to receive education at home, whereby teachers visit and carry out instruction at the child’s home. Yet parents interviewed during the course of our research in 2017-2019, whose children received education at home, described how their children received instruction on average for eight to 10 hours a week. Education at home is not envisioned exclusively as a temporary measure; it is determined according to an assessment of a child’s health by a Medical-Advisory-Commission (VKK). Upon examining a child with disabilities, the VKK issues a “medical conclusion” about “the state of a child’s health to determine the question of home education.” The VKK assessment is then considered by the PMPK when determining the referral for school enrollment or home education.[2] Children with disabilities may receive long-term home education and those who do are unable to access vocational or higher education, and are isolated and separated from their peers, classmates, and society more broadly. Home education can have a serious impact on a child’s future education and work prospects.

Children with disabilities who had lived in residential institutions, or special children’s centers, said that they received little or no education. In interviews with Human Rights Watch at three institutions, staff confirmed that the vast majority of children living there did not go to school. They said some children attended “correctional” classes in the institutions. And in correspondence with Human Rights Watch about education for children in children’s institutions in 2018, the Labor and Social Protection Ministry said that “children with psychiatric-neurological pathologies… have difficulty learning in special classes in special educational institutions” and are thus under the care of the social services system.

Young people with disabilities and their parents described to Human Rights Watch how the lack of adequate preparation in home education and special schools negatively affected their prospects for higher education. Young people and other experts interviewed by Human Rights Watch also described discriminatory barriers to higher education such as lack of infrastructure and other reasonable accommodations.

Human Rights Watch also documented how parents who tried to enroll their children in preprimary education similarly faced barriers to inclusive education. Preprimary school plays a key role in early identification and intervention in cases of children with disabilities. Although Kazakh law specifies that parents have the choice to enroll their child in a mainstream or special kindergarten (preprimary school), Human Rights Watch documented how in practice some mainstream kindergartens denied enrollment to children with disabilities.

The CRPD requires the government to provide reasonable accommodations, or the “necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments, not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case,” to ensure people with disabilities enjoy all human rights and freedoms on an equal basis with others, throughout all education levels. Taken together, new provisions introduced by the June 2021 inclusive education law make it the responsibility of the government and of mainstream school administrations to provide reasonable accommodations to children with disabilities. The denial of reasonable accommodations constitutes discrimination.

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to ask the Kazakhstan Government:

• Can the government provide the specific impacts and results of steps it has taken in recent years to remove barriers to inclusive education for all children with disabilities in Kazakhstan, including those with high support needs?
• Can the government comment on how it supports mainstream schools in Kazakhstan to provide reasonable accommodations to children with disabilities, as established in the June 2021 law, and what results it has seen?
• Could the government please comment on why no education is provided to the “2,400 children (2.3 per cent) who do not attend school owing to severe mental disabilities” as indicated in the government’s response to the List of Issues?

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to recommend that the Kazakhstan government:

• Ensure in practice that all children with disabilities receive a quality inclusive education on an equal basis with others at all levels, including children with high support needs, and with the provision of reasonable accommodations, in line with the government’s international obligations. This should include children and adults with intellectual, developmental, and psychosocial disabilities.
• Amend legislation to define inclusive education in a way that is consistent with the CRPD and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ General Comment No. 4 on inclusive education, in particular, by making explicit in law that inclusive education is a right for every individual, including individuals with disabilities, that cannot be denied based on a medical or other assessment by state bodies.
• End any formal or informal practice that trumps the compulsory nature of education and permits school and other officials to rely on an assessment by the PMPK to deny children access to inclusive education in mainstream schools.
• Ensure that article 15-1, subpoint 5 of the Law on Social and Medical-Pedagogical Support for Children with Disabilities is amended to expunge reference to a PMPK conclusion as a prerequisite for enrollment and attendance in a mainstream school.
• Ensure maximum inclusion of children in mainstream classrooms and avoid segregation of children with disabilities in special schools, home education, or in separate classrooms within mainstream schools. Ensure that home education is exceptional and used only for short periods, and then only when absolutely necessary for health reasons, rather than a practice to further segregate children with disabilities.
• Continue to develop standards and professional training guidelines on inclusive education and ensure they promote a teaching culture that moves away from a one-size-fits-all approach to education towards one that can adapt to different and diverse learning abilities and styles.
• Ensure that children with disabilities and their parents have real choices, and access to adequate comprehensive information, regarding their educational path, especially at key transition stages (e.g. preschool to primary; primary to lower secondary; upper secondary to higher education). Children and parents should not feel compelled to opt for special schools or home education due to failures of mainstream schools to provide reasonable accommodations for children.
• Ensure education for students with disabilities, particularly for deaf, blind or deafblind students, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development, in line with the CRPD.
• Ensure students with disabilities are supported to enroll in vocational training and universities once they have completed secondary education or vocational schools. Support young adults with disabilities who are not able to enroll in formal education to access life-long learning opportunities for skills acquisition, including through adult education programs.
• Throughout the development and implementation of policies and programs on inclusive education, consult regularly and meaningfully with children and other persons with disabilities and disabled persons’ organizations.
• Work to ensure the availability of an adequate number of properly trained teachers and other professionals, such as psychologists, speech therapists, and special teachers, as well as aides for students where appropriate.
• Establish programs, in collaboration with disabled persons’ organizations, that aim to develop and embed a culture of inclusive education in schools and in the community. Such programs should involve parents and might include joint classes on disability awareness for children with and without disabilities and other joint activities.
• According to international practices and standards, collect data on the total number of children with disabilities in the country, including the number of children of compulsory school age in education and out of school, disaggregated by disability-type, location, and other demographic markers. Formulate educational policies, plans, and programs based on data.
• Support the development of a culture of inclusive education in schools and society at large. Specifically, conduct awareness raising campaigns to combat stigma and prejudice, and offer classes on disability awareness and hold activities for children with and without disabilities together, with the aim of developing respect for people with disabilities.

Abusive Treatment and Conditions in State Residential Children’s Institutions (arts. 10, 15, 16, and 17)

Children with disabilities in state care in Kazakhstan live in institutions known as Special Social Services Centers for Children. In July 2019, there were 19 special children’s centers, with a total of over 2,000 children. The Kazakhstan government confirmed in its replies to the List of Issues, that as of July 2021, 2,000 children with disabilities were living in residential institutions.   

Most children in these centers have intellectual, psychosocial – that is, mental health – or developmental disabilities. They include children with Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. Children in Kazakhstan with other types of disabilities, such as physical or sensory disabilities, may live in residential special schools, or at home with their families, or in two specialized residential institutions for children with physical disabilities. Human Rights Watch notes Kazakhstan’s claim in its response to the List of Issues that “the legislation of Kazakhstan in the field of social protection does not contain the concept of “closed institution”.” Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch researched several residential institutions for children with disabilities that are indeed closed institutions under human rights standards.

Human Rights Watch found that children with disabilities living in these closed residential institutions are at risk of violence and other abuse. Several young adults who grew up in institutions told Human Rights Watch that staff beat them with objects such as crutches and mops, or slammed them or other children against the wall. Staff would also force children to work, for example to mop floors, or to feed, bathe, and change the diapers of younger children.

In one institution, Human Rights Watch saw a young girl in physical restraints, with her arms fixed around her torso, enclosed in a pink cloth with sleeves tied behind her back, like a strait jacket. Another staff member in the same institution said that they sometimes use physical restraints on children if they “really act up.” In those cases, she said, they restrain the child for 20 or 30 minutes, “but we don’t tie young ones, only children 10 and above.”

In March 2018, an 8-year-old boy who lived in a children’s institution in Talgar, a town in southern Kazakhstan, died of asphyxiation after his caregiver reportedly tied him to a bed because he would not sleep and was disturbing other children in the same room. The caregiver was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but no other institution staff appear to have been held accountable for the child’s death.

Local media has continued to report on cases of abuse in closed children’s institutions in recent years. In May 2022, four children living in a residential institution in eastern Kazakhstan died and 16 others were hospitalized with measles and intestinal infections. In September and October 2022, several caregivers in Aktobe were convicted and sentenced to up to four and a half years of restricted freedom after courts found them guilty of “torment” (article 110 of the Criminal Code). They had been caught on video beating the children in the institution where they worked. In August 2023, the media reported that 14 children in a state residential institution in Karaganda were hospitalized with poisoning and that two of the children had later died. Police opened an investigation.

Several of the then-current or former special children’s center residents told Human Rights Watch that staff had given them sedatives, or they had seen staff give other children sedatives to control them or punish them for their behavior. Some children said that staff forced them to go to local psychiatric hospitals for behavior such as not following staff directions, which they took to be punishment. Some were forced to remain there for weeks, a month, or more.

Bakhyt (not her real name), a 24-year-old woman who grew up in a special children’s center, said that institution staff punish children by “giving shots to make [us] sleep.” She also said that staff had punished her for running around in the bedroom by giving her an injection, and had sent her to the psychiatric hospital for two months. Bakhyt said that institution staff had told the attending psychiatrist that she had tried to jump out of the window, though she said she hadn’t. “They shouldn’t lie like that,” she said. “God is watching.”

Staff confirmed that they use psychotropic drugs to sedate children and have sent children to psychiatric hospitals for behavior such as screaming, shouting, or refusing to follow staff directions. Such drugs are usually medically prescribed to treat schizophrenia, sleep disorders, and strong pain. The sedatives put children to sleep, in some cases for up to 24 hours.

Children who were transferred to adult institutions upon turning 18 said they faced similar abuse there. Two former residents also told Human Rights Watch that they were put in isolation as punishment. A young man said that one night orderlies had beat him and insulted him, and then put him in an isolation room overnight:

“It was so cold. They opened the window. It was so cold. They would give me the shot and then close me in the cage. It was so cold. They took all of our clothes off. We were totally without anything… No bed, nothing, just a bare floor. I just had to lie on the floor. There was nothing. It was so cold.”

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to ask the Kazakhstan Government:

• What has been the impact of any concrete steps the government has taken in recent years to monitor, prevent, and remedy abuses in closed institutions for children with disabilities in Kazakhstan, given continued reports of abuse across the country?
• What has the government done to ensure that all forms of violence in closed institutions and the use of restraints as a form of punishment, control, or retaliation, or as a measure of convenience for staff, are fully prohibited?

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to recommend that the Kazakhstan government:

• Systematically monitor institutions, prevent and remedy human rights abuses, including violence, the use of sedatives and physical restraints for punishment, control, or for staff convenience; and other abuses.

Respect for home and the family (art. 23)

In the three children’s institutions Human Rights Watch visited, children face neglect. In each of the three special children’s centers, rooms for children were organized by age, type of disability, or both, as well as by gender. Up to 16 children are kept in rooms together, with only a few caregivers. Some children, typically those who cannot walk or talk, are confined almost continuously to cribs or beds.

Under such circumstances, even the most dedicated staff face challenges providing the individualized attention and care that each child needs. This is especially true with respect to young children or children with high support needs, where children are given little or no opportunity or support for physical, emotional, or intellectual growth.

In correspondence in 2018 with Human Rights Watch, the Labor and Social Protection Ministry acknowledged that “large dormitory-like institutions lead to overcrowding… reduce the quality of services and the social adaptation of people in society, [and] lead to the loss of family ties.” The Labor and Social Protection Ministry also said that 727 children with disabilities had been returned to their families in 2018, facilitated by the development of day care centers. The ministry said that it plans to develop smaller homes, for 10 to 50 people.

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to ask the Kazakhstan Government:

• What has been the impact of any concrete steps the government has taken in recent years to move children with disabilities out of closed residential institutions and provide support for children with disabilities to live with their families or other family settings in the community?

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to recommend that the Kazakhstan government:

• Establish a time-bound plan to end the use of closed residential institutions for children with disabilities. Children should only be placed in any residential institution under the supervision of an independent judicial body, in emergency cases or to prevent the separation of siblings, and for a limited duration. Planned family reunification or placement in family-based alternative care should be the ultimate outcome for the child.
• Examine ways to reallocate government funds and programming from institutions to increase support for people with disabilities to live independently in their communities and for families to raise children with disabilities at home.
• Develop quality, accessible community-based services for people with disabilities and families of children with disabilities.

Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport (art. 30)

The children in the institutions Human Rights Watch visited lacked access to sufficient play and recreation, particularly children confined to their beds. All children in institutions follow a strict daily schedule, with defined meal and nap times, and spend the majority of their day indoors. Irina (not her real name), 23, said that in the children’s institution where she had lived, “everywhere there were only bars. We were always within four walls. We never went anywhere on our own.”

Institution directors said that some of the center’s children leave the institutions for day outings, or events such as a concert. It was not clear how frequently children participate in these activities, as the institutions have buses that can accommodate only 20 or 30 children, whereas more than 100 children lived in each of the institutions at the time.

Human Rights Watch encourages the Committee to ask the Kazakhstan government to:

• Pending phasing out these institutions, ensure that children with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities living in state institutions have regular access to their families, ideally through home visits and access to inclusive education, adequate health care, rehabilitation, and play.