In Chernihiv, ATO participants and legal aid providers discussed ways to solve the most pressing problems of war veterans

At the end of January 2018, a training school for ATO participants and their family members, volunteers, and public activists on the topic: “Main aspects of overcoming legal and psychological problems of ATO participants at the community level” was completed in Chernihiv.

The event was attended by veteran organizations of ATO participants from all over the region, combatants, representatives of centers for providing assistance to ATO veterans and public organizations, as well as representatives of the Regional and local centers for providing free secondary legal aid.

Also present were the Deputy Head of the State Registration Department

Vyacheslav Chernysh

and the Chief Specialist of the Analytics and Statistics Sector of the State Executive Service Department

Anna Nikonova

of the Main Territorial Department of Justice in Chernihiv Region and

Igor Puzan

– Head of the Department of Land Management and Land Protection of the Main Department of the State Geocadastre in Chernihiv Region, who spoke about the new legislation and its implementation.

The largest block of questions was devoted to the basic aspects of the rights and social guarantees of ATO participants. The state guarantees ATO veterans certain rights, but the mechanism for their implementation is often absent, and demobilized or family members of deceased or deceased ATO participants face a lot of problems, primarily, confirmation of participation in hostilities, receipt of state-guaranteed payments, benefits, etc. Of course, the most issues today arise in the field of land legislation, provision of housing, compensations and payments. In addition, the psychological problems of combatants were also discussed, which are based, first of all, on the lack of a regulatory framework, lack of awareness of the problem and its consequences by society, stereotypes, as well as the lack of real centers and their financing.

Also during the work, the participants of the event, together with lawyers from the Chernihiv office of the Legal Development Network, identified the most priority problems of war veterans at the regional level and based on them developed a draft roadmap for ATO participants and their family members.

During the discussion of all training blocks, the participants agreed that today, in the conditions of decentralization, many privileges and opportunities are assigned to communities, and the provision of real privileges to combatants, members of their families, killed and deceased combatants depends on how the authorities and the community will cooperate, and they also developed algorithms for solving certain problems in communities.

In addition to identifying the causes of the most acute legal problems and discussing possible ways to overcome them, the participants shared their own experience of working with combatants and families of the killed or deceased and discussed the terms of cooperation between state organizations and the public in solving these problems.

The organizer of the event is the Chernihiv office of the Legal Development Network of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights. The training was conducted within the framework of project No. 51751 “Strengthening the legal capacity and socio-psychological integration of ATO participants and their family members at the level of territorial communities” with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.