Carrie Cecil, Pitt Law '10, files from Kiev:

I've been in Kiev for a little over a week, and every day something new in the landscape amuses or intrigues me, ranging from the incredible amount of cranes all over the city due to the lack of effective zoning to the incredibly long escalators rising out of the subway stations that also function as bomb shelters.

Barrier-free accessibility for disabled persons has also piqued my interest.

In the United States, there are a large variety of laws and regulations mandating accessibility for disabled persons. These regulations and laws mandate tiny details such as the height of sinks in public restrooms or the angle at which a ramp must be constructed to allow access into buildings. When I arrived in Kiev, I quickly realized that Ukrainians in wheelchairs lack access to much of the transport system and many buildings. In addition, many of the sidewalks lack ramps for easy entry and exit and often require the use of steps to cross under major intersections. The terrain is often a combination of dilapidated concrete and dirt further acting as a barrier to movement around the city. There are some concrete rails constructed over some stairways leading into buildings and the subway stations, but these are constructed for mothers pushing baby carriages rather than those in wheelchairs. To be able to move around the city, disabled persons are dependent on family members or must call for public transport to pick them up at least 24 hours before the trip.

It's not that regulations promoting barrier-free access don't exist. They do. The problem is the result of a failure to enforce existing laws and regulations. There are no incentives for the construction business to provide barrier-free access and no penalties for failing to do so. Further, there continues to be a social stigma attached to disabled persons living in the Ukraine because in the former Soviet Union people with disabilities were mostly hidden from public view. Today, disabled persons are guaranteed equal rights by the Ukrainian Constitution and many receive meager government pensions. The problem is that most of the effective legislation regarding disabled persons in the Ukraine has to do with the awarding of pensions. These pensions are not enough to survive on and are awarded based on a classification system used in the former Soviet Union. The government has also created regulations promoting the employment of disabled persons, but companies avoid the regulations by paying them half of their salary to stay home instead of actually allowing them to work. The combination of barriers in the landscape and an inability to earn a living wage result in a seeming continuation of the Soviet system with disabled persons dependent on family members to care for them and still largely hidden from public view.