Every fourth case of child abuse in Ukraine linked with war in Donbas – study

The experts claim that psychological violence is the most frequent abuse among the cases of domestic violence related to military activities and armed conflict.

The International Human Rights Center “La Strada-Ukraine” in cooperation with the Social Policy Ministry of Ukraine has recently released the data about the all-Ukrainian study “Risks of increased violence against children amid military aggression and analysis of readiness of experts to provide effective assistance to abused children, including sexually abused.”

The study covered the period from April 2014 to May 2016 (since onset of the military conflict in eastern Ukraine).

A total of 262 respondents provided full information for the study.

The survey was conducted among those who work with children, in particular, the experts of children’s services, social service centers for families, children and youth, social protection departments, territorial subdivisions of the National Police of Ukraine and other agencies.

Thus, according to the study, 53% of respondents said they had recorded in their work the cases of violence or child abuse. Among them, almost every fourth (23.7%) recorded the cases that had been linked with military actions and armed conflicts.

Those experts who faced cases of violence or child abuse, focused more on abuse of children in the family, including physical (70 people), psychological (66 persons), sexual (21 people) and economic (11 people).

Moreover, respondents are aware of specific cases where a child was beaten by hand or given a slap (74 persons), degraded, insulted (alone or in the presence of others) (63 people), beaten with hands or feet (24 people), forced to have sex (rape) (19 people), and was intimidated, blackmailed.

However, the experts called psychological violence as the most frequent abuse related to military activities.

According to the experts, abuses are committed by parents and peers. Violent acts against children are most likely to occur at home, in the family.

The experts associate the key factors that could influence the increase in cases of violence or ill-treatment of children amid war with education and family environment: the fact of domestic violence, use of alcohol and drugs by a family member, lack of parents’ attention to a child, difficult financial situation in the family and so on.

It was also noted the influence of the news media on criminal offences and lack of rehabilitation of persons who were in the ATO area and who might pose a threat to a child.

At the same time, every fourth expert is convinced that about half (50%) cases have still not been registered.

Another problem is that the information about cases of violence or ill-treatment of children from different sources is not summarized in a single register. Part of respondents agrees that current statistics do not allow identifying cases related or caused by war. The majority of organization does not record the statistics of such incidents so it is difficult to estimate the real number.

The study also shows the general statistics on the complaints about domestic violence.

Thus, according to the preventive activity department of the National Police of Ukraine, violence against family members was used in 45,012 families in 2015 (versus 49,287 families in 2014).

As reported by the department for family, gender policy and combating human trafficking of the Social Policy Ministry of Ukraine, the reports on child abuse were mostly recorded in Kyiv city (11,099), Dnipropetrovsk region (7,319), Vinnytsia region (6,559) and Lviv region (5896) in 2015.

A total of 103,101 such complaints were recorded throughout Ukraine, including 706 coming from children. The number of complaints in individual regions increased significantly. A total of 1,136 children were registered. The largest number was registered in Dnipropetrovsk region (123 people), Odesa region (86), Kirovohrad region (69) and Kharkiv region (68 people).

However, there is no summarized information about the number of cases of violence and child abuse in the context of military operations and armed conflicts, which could be used to estimate the number of cases. Research experts say it is therefore difficult to estimate the true prevalence of such cases.

The survey was provided for by the Action Plan for implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy until 2020. It was conducted by NGO “Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies” by order “La Strada-Ukraine” in cooperation with the Social Policy Ministry.