UNICEF: Ukraine obliged to ensure children’s right to restorative justice

Ukraine is obliged to ensure the right of minors to restorative justice, which allows to withdraw children from the criminal process.

Giovanna Barberis, the UNICEF Representative in Ukraine, said this during a roundtable meeting, organized by NGO “Institute of Peace and Harmony” in Kyiv on July 13, the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports.

“Having ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Ukraine undertook commitments to improve the justice system regarding juveniles, which encourages the use of alternative and renewable responses to the offences committed by minors. These measures give priority to forms of responsibility unrelated to imprisonment, but which contribute to reconciliation and restoration of relations,” Barberis said.

She added that mediation was exactly the measure which helped to withdraw a child from a criminal process.

“By approving the National Human Rights Strategy until 2020, the government of Ukraine has clearly defined the directions for implementation of an effective justice system regarding juveniles in accordance with the international standards. UNICEF will continue to support reforms in the field of ​​juvenile justice,” Barberis said.

Aksana Filipishina, the representative of the head of department for children’s rights, non-discrimination and gender equality at the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, who attended the meeting, noted that introduction of the restorative justice mechanisms is very timely as currently there are 8 million children in Ukraine who are at risk of becoming offenders because of military operations in the country. This particularly refers to the children who are in difficult circumstances due to forced displacement from the occupied territories, as well as the children from the families of ATO participants.

Restorative justice is the settlement of a legal conflict, involving a victim, an offender, their social environment, organizations dealing with justice, and the public. Restorative justice programs are based on the principle that criminal behavior not only violates the law, but also harms the victims and society.