The New Ukrainian Law on Local Elections deprives migrants off their right to vote
The new law on local elections deprived migrants off their right to vote on October’s elections.
Sulaiman Mamutov, legal analyst of the Ukrainian Charitable Foundation “The Right to Protection”, said that this new law conflicts with the Constitution of Ukraine, law on the rights of forced migrants and United Nations standards.
Oleksandra Dvoretska, a Chairman of the Board of the Charitable Fund “Vostok-SOS”, emphasizes that Ukrainian society still has lots of myths with regard to forced migrants, for example, concerning registration of a new residence, or their ability to understand specificity of local affairs.
She says that though today they are members of new communities and do not plan to return back, this new law practically denies this fact.
Coordinator of the “Krym-SOS” initiative Tamila Tasheva underlines that this new law does not facilitate forced migrants integration into hosting communities. “Only when they will have a right to vote, when they will be able to influence local officials, they will integrate into new communities,” says Tamila Tasheva.
She also made clear that forced migrants are interested to vote for the local governments, because they consider themselves integral part of these communities and do not plan to return back. “Civil society and government must realize that they do have nowhere to return back,”she concluded.
