MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine

The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Human rights in Ukraine – 2007. 19. Domestic violence as a violation of human rights

27.07.2008   

[1]

General overview

The situation with prevention and countering violence in the family remained as difficult in 2007 as previously and did not safeguard the right to life, privacy, inviolability, the highest attainable level of health, freedom from physical or psychological punishment, moral and economic pressure, etc.

  It should also be noted that the Council of Europe designated 2007 as the year against domestic violence and began a European Campaign to Stop Domestic Violence against Women, with this campaign continuing up till 2008. The idea to hold it arose at the Council of Europe summit in Warsaw where participants began demanding that urgent measures be taken to stop violence against women which had taken on frightening proportions in Europe. Governments, the appropriate State institutions, international and nongovernmental organizations, as well as the media and the public as a whole, should become involved in implementing this. The campaign is aimed at making the public aware of the scale of violence against women and promoting new laws and practice designed to put an end to the violence.[2]

  The United Nations have also expressed concern over the situation with violence and have announced a decade for fighting this. On 25 February 2008 the UN began a campaign to fight violence against women and young girls. The campaign will last until 2015 which is also the final year for achieving the Millennium Objectives on overcoming poverty.[3].

The Ukrainian State as represented by government figures and structures effectively ignored this year, while marking it through one significant negative event, this being the eviction by court order from their premises and effective closure of the Kyiv City Centre for working with women (the court application was lodged by the Shevchenkivsky District Council in Kyiv). The process of “seizure” of real estate in Kyiv which is continuing has impinged upon organizational structures for protecting women’s rights and preventing violence in the family.[4]. The capital thus provided an “example” for how to treat such institutions in other regions.

State policy on countering and preventing violence in the family can be said to have been unsatisfactory in 2007. Confirmation of this is found in the situation regarding the recommendations made in last year’s report[5] (see the section  Recommendations made by human rights organizations in Human Rights in Ukraine – 2005,   and the degree to which they have been implemented). Since last year’s report also had a separate section devoted to violations of human rights in cases of domestic violence, there is no point in repeating provisions in the report for 2007 which have remained unchanged. There are things, phenomena and measures, the duration or significance of which goes beyond one year, and we will point these out, referring to the relevant pages. At the same time, the structure of this report has been left similar to that for last year to make it easier to compare figures and trends.

According to figures from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) on prevention and intervention by the police to stop cases of domestic violence, in 2007 there were 87, 831 people on their preventive register who had committed acts of violence in the family. Of these, 77, 664 were male, 9098 female and 1, 069 children. In 2007 more than 65 thousand people were placed on the register, of which 37, 728 were for physical violence; 24, 382 – for psychological violence and 2, 916 for economic coercion. 76, 865 warnings were issued, as well as around 5, 830 protection orders. Physical and psychological violence are most common with these accounting for 95% of all cases.[6]

The State Social Service for Children, the Family and Youth keeps a database of crisis families. As of 1 January 2007 this contained approximately 113, 681 families[7].

The National Help Line on Violence and Protection of Children’s Rights 8 800 500 33 50, which is based at the “La Strada – Ukraine” Centre over the period from December 2004 to December 2007 received 1, 059 calls, 367 in 2007.

According to figures from the Kyiv City Centre for Work with Women which provided free legal, psychological, information and medical and social support, during the period that it was functioning, around 39 thousand women and 3.5 thousand men received help needed. Each year around 60 women and 25 children receive shelter and protection in the refugee for victims of domestic violence. 446 rang the Centre’s help line in 2007.

 The Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport reports that in their centres of socio-psychological help over 9 months in 2007 255 members of staff and 28 extra employees provided the following assistance: for 1, 349 people in 24-hour centres; one-off help – 2, 876 people; help in a day centre – 891; consultations over a telephone advice line – 2, 341.[8]  During this period specialists at the centres provided 98, 263 social services, including 14, 785 psychological, 3, 731 legal, 10, 259 socio-pedagogical, 39, 730 social and everyday; 8, 383 information, 16, 181 socio-economic and 5, 194 socio-medical services.

Violence in the family is also expensive with the victims incurring considerable material losses. The average cost of an incident of domestic violence is 7, 300 UAH, with the victims paying around 1, 700 and the rest being at the expense of the taxpayer.  Experts estimate that cases of domestic violence cost Ukraine’s budget approximately 158 464 540 UAH[9].  The calculation for one case of violence in the family included a number of elements, including:

direct lost of property;

health-related expenses;

economic loss caused by the inability to work or of not having gone to work;

expenses linked with the law enforcement agencies;

court expenses;

social services’ expenses;

expenses through being in shelters and crisis centres;

expenses linked with the victim’s children

The State’s responsibility for safeguarding the right to protection from violence

It is worth repeating this year also the conclusions of civic and international organizations, including Amnesty International, that the Ukrainian authorities are not fulfilling their international obligations and are not applying in practice the principle of the State’s due diligence in safeguarding the rights of women to equality, life, freedom, security and freedom from discrimination[10].

  On 19 February 2007 a Cabinet of Ministers Resolution approved a Government Programme for Support of the Family up to 2010. It contains several items which pertain to the prevention of violence in the family.

  For example, it states that implementation of this programme will make it possible, among other things, to: “improve the system for preventing violence in the family and creating an effective system for providing assistance to victims of violence, improve the system for helping families in difficulties, providing social accompaniment; there will be a reduction in the number of crimes linked with violence in the family. Separate provisions of the Action Plan for supporting the family relate specifically to overcoming violence in the family. This is for example, the State’s duty to:

-  Carry out monitoring of the effective implementation of the Law “On preventing violence in the family” and other normative legal acts  in this area, and prepare if necessary proposals on making amendments to these (item 2);

-  Prepare proposals regarding the extension of the time frame for protection orders envisaged by the Law “On preventing violence in the family” from 30 days to three months (item 3);

-  Carry out wide-scale information and awareness-raising work by creating and circulating social advertising on prevention of violence in the family (television and radio programmes, printed matter, organize training courses and seminars in general and higher educational institutions on preventing and countering violence in the family (item 24);

-  Hold an annual Nationwide action “16 days against violence” (item 25);

-  Circulate methodological literature on the use of contemporary forms and methods of work with people responsible for violence in the family and their victims (item 26);

-  Ensure that method guides are drawn up and applied in practice for identification, prophylactic work and socio-psychological rehabilitation for children who have suffered violence in the family (item 27);

-  Include in the plans for training educational “junior specialists” and “specialists” a lecture course on aggression and victimology (item 28);

-  Organize work on preparing and publishing methodological material on prevention of violence in the family, and on working with people prone to committing such acts of violence and with their victims (item 30);

-  Carry out scientific research on psychological assistance for children suffering from violence in the family, training courses and seminars for specialists on family issues regarding the use of measures for prevention of violence in the family (item 33);

-  Include in the curriculum for training psychologists, social workers and other specialists in the field of education a course of lectures on rehabilitation of victims of violence in the family; introduce into postgraduate institutions for educational workers a course of lectures on prevention of violence in the family and providing assistance to the victims of such violence (item 34);

-  Include in the curriculum in higher medical educational institutions a course of lectures on prevention of violence in the family and providing assistance to the victims of such violence; ensuring retraining and professional development for specialists on primary treatment and prophylactic aid, and other medical personnel working with the victims of violence in the family (item 35);

-  Improve the system of departmental reporting and introduce State statistical reporting on prevention of violence in the family and on cases of ill-treatment of children (item 36).

In March 2007 the Verkhovna Rada finally approved the recommendations from the Parliamentary Hearings on “The situation with countering gender violence in Ukraine”, held on 22 November 2006. The document approved was considerably reduced from the original draft prepared by participants in the hearings and the profile Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Inter-ethnic relations.

On 5 March 2008 the profile committee held a meeting which heard reports on the implementation of the recommendations. It showed that there had been no determined and coordinated work among the various State structures in 2007 and that there was no integrated State policy on countering violence. Only the MIA had kept statistics. In the previous report attention was given to the provision of specialized medical assistance to victims of violence. Unfortunately the situation in this area which most concerns the rights of victims to assistance, to protection of their health, has remained entirely unchanged. Therefore all the provisions in the previous report remain relevant now.

As for improvement of legislative provisions, the draft law № 2539 «On amendments to some legislative acts of Ukraine on prevention of violence in the family” was passed in its first reading in February 2007.  The draft law was prepared for its second reading in April 2007, however due to the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada it was only submitted to the Committee for review on 16 January 2008. As of 7 April 2008 it had not been put to the vote in parliament.

The situation has not improved, and therefore all the conclusions from the previous report remain current regarding the basic violations of human rights, in the first instance the rights of women and children, both through violence and the lack of protection and punishment of those responsible.

 

Recommendations

We would add the following recommendations to those made last year:

-  Investigate the possibility of changing the national help line number on prevention of domestic violence to a short (three-digit) number for ease of use;

-  Organize and run training for employees of duty units on 02 telephones with regard to registering crimes involving domestic violence;

-  Regularly carry out training of duty police inspectors and employees of the criminal police on juvenile matters on countering domestic violence and working with victims and the abused;

-  Organize and run training of judges on countering violence in the family;

-  Draw up and introduce amendments to the Criminal Code on criminalizing cases of domestic violence;

-  Recreate at the regional level the work of consultative and advisory bodies on countering violence in the family;

-  Continue work on creating institutions for victims of violence;

-  Draw up and introduce programmes for working with the abused;

-  Investigate the possibility of introducing into every district and city Department for Family, Youth and Sport a specialist responsible for work on preventing domestic violence.

-  Carry out a comprehensive nationwide study of the problems of violence in the family;

-  Prepare annual government reports on the situation with countering violence in the family;

-  It would be wise for nongovernmental organizations to create a coalition of nongovernmental organizations against violence;

-  Sharpen the attention of educational workers in educational institutions to the problems of children of labour migrants and their social milieu. By identifying these children, studying the conditions they are living in, informing the school administration, the psychological services and juvenile services about them, organize socio-pedagogical work with them and their social milieu and.work on their upbringing.

 

 



[1] By specialists from the International Women’s Human Rights Centre “La Strada – Ukraine” K.  Levchenko, O.  Kalashnyk, K. Cherepakha,   M. Lehenka and M.V. Yevsyukova. As well as the main sources of information about the prevalence of violence in the family which we used when preparing last year’s report (data from parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, reports from civic organizations that work on prevention and countering domestic violence, including information received through help lines, sociological and criminological studies, information from the press), we would also add answers to deputy queries from National Deputies (MPs), official letters from the central authorities and regional State administrations.

[2] Website of the Office of the Council of Europe in the country “Stop domestic violence against women” http://coe.kiev.ua/Campain/domestic/Stop%20violence%20domestic%20pace.htm.

[3] U.N. campaign takes on violence against women // Reuters, Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:00pm EST: http://reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2527640020080226?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

[4] The Shevchenkivsky District Council in Kyiv is continuing its assault on civil rights” Thousands of Kyiv women may suffer! // Report on the website “La Strada – Ukraine” http://lastrada.org.ua/readnews.cgi?lng=ua&Id=1396.

[5] Human Rights in Ukraine – 2006. Report of Human Rights Organizations // UHHRU, KHPG, Kharkiv: Prava lyudyny, 2007.

[6] More detailed information can be found on the MIA website http://mvs.gov.ua/mvs/control/main/uk/publish/article/53966;


[7] The categories of families in difficult circumstances are based on a Joint Order of the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Employment and Social Policy, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Department for the Execution of Sentences from 14.06.2006 № 1983/388/452/221/556/596/106 «On approving Rules of Procedure for people engaged in social work with families in difficult circumstances”. The list is as follows::

- families with children who find themselves in difficult circumstances and are unable to resolve the problem themselves due to disability of parents or children; forced migration;  the drug or alcohol dependence of a member of the family; a member of the family being imprisoned; HIV-infection; violence in the family; neglected children; children being orphaned; lack of respect and negative relations within the family; one of the members of the family being unemployed if s/he is registered with a State employment service as looking for a job;

- families where a question has been raised as to whether to place a child in a children’s home for orphans and children deprived of parental care;

- underage solo mothers (fathers) who need support;

- families whose members have been or are on State support .

[8]  The results of the work of social service institutions during 9 months of 2007 // Report on the official website of the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport from 14 November 2007  http://kmu.gov.ua/sport/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=83771&cat_id=66794.

[9]  The “La Strada – Ukraine” website  http://lastrada.org.ua/readnews.cgi?lng=ua&Id=1412.

[10] Amnesty International’s report: “Domestic Violence - Blaming the victim”, published on 19 July 2007, available from the AI website at: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR500052006?open&of=ENG-UKR

 Share this