MP: Legislative amendments needed to stop domestic violence in Ukraine

The problem of domestic violence in Ukraine is not silenced, however, the effective solution to the problem needs legislative amendments, awareness raising activities in the community and media support.

This has been recently stated by Iryna Lutsenko, the MP of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the member of the inter-faction association “Equal Opportunities”, the Human Rights Information Centre reports.

“Military activities have a woman’s face. War is not just men. Women and children suffer from the war most of all,” Iryna Lutsenko said.

It is a challenge not only for Ukraine, the war affects women worldwide. To solve this problem, the UN resolution No. 1325 was adopted in 2000.

The resolution proposes holding training and educational work with the police, the army, in particular, on how to talk with victims, how to ask questions, what assistance should be provided to victims.

“Apart from medical and financial assistance, the psychological aid should be primarily given to victims of violence,” the MP said.

The resolution also mentions the importance of the role of female diplomats.

“A lot of attention is paid to the fact that it is necessary to enter more women into the army for the army to acquire the status of protection and safety, not attack and aggression,” Lutsenko said.

MP voices the statistics: 36% of women constantly serve in the Israeli army now, 16% of women serve in the US army, 9% – in the UK, and 8.5% – in Ukraine. These are servicepersons who take part in the fighting.

“The Security Council resolution requires serious work for psychologists and educational establishments where the children in pre-school institutions are taught that violence is impossible. It also implies changes in health care facilities, work with prosecutors, judges. By the way, the political factor is also mentioned in the resolution – increasing the number of women in the government, when making economic and legislative decisions, etc.,” Iryna Lutsenko said.

Ukraine is the 68th country, which adopted the resolution, drafted and approved the national action plan for implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1325 on Women, Peace and Security until 2020. It was one of the important steps that Ukraine made in order to overcome family violence.

As the Ukrainian Social Policy Ministry noted, the document was adopted due to a number of risks associated with the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, gender-specific risks, and the need for optimal use of women’s potential in countering violence and establishing peace.

The second important step for Ukraine is ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).

“These two documents are very important for prevention of domestic violence. These documents have been given to all local authorities for a broad discussion,” Iryna Lutsenko noted.

The ratification of the Istanbul Convention is scheduled for this summer.

The MP said that the silenced problem of domestic violence has been raised over the last year and a half during the advocacy campaign for ratification of the Istanbul Convention, involving politicians, civil society organizations, the media. This has made it possible to speed up and adopt, in particular, the action plan for implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy, namely in terms of gender equality, human trafficking, domestic violence against women.

However, Iryna Lutsenko stressed it is half the battle to harmonize Ukrainian legislation with the Istanbul Convention.

“We all know perfectly well how many people came back from the ATO to each region. But is there rehabilitation for them? What has been done by the local authorities?” the MP asked.

Therefore, the third important step for Ukraine in overcoming the problem is to comply with the law, change procedures, orders, regulations.

“To solve this, it is necessary to work in two directions – to conduct awareness raising campaigns and to cooperate with the media,” Lutsenko said.

As a reminder, information campaign “The war which does not let go”, held by the Human Rights Information Centre with the support of the International Charitable Foundation “Ukrainian Women’s Fund” is ongoing.

The campaign provides for meetings with the servicemen, preparation of articles for Ukrainian media and women’s magazines in particular, touching upon the issue of domestic violence in the families of ATO participants in the meetings with representatives of public authorities.