Entities designated by law must prevent cases of domestic violence

On July 2, 2019, the Interdepartmental Council on Family, Gender Equality, Demographic Development, Prevention of Domestic Violence and Counteraction to Human Trafficking was held at the Regional State Administration, during which the state of interaction of all entities implementing measures in the field of prevention and counteraction to domestic violence in the region was considered.

The round table meeting was opened by the Acting Head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration

Natalia Romanova

, who emphasized that work on combating domestic violence should have started much earlier. Perhaps then many dramatic and even tragic cases in Chernihiv families would have been avoided. But this does not mean that it is not necessary to work further.

The head of the administration also noted that today interdepartmental interaction at the city and community levels has not been established, since only 10 out of 39 ATCs of the region have created interdepartmental coordination councils on combating domestic violence and have designated authorized persons for this area.

— The process of decentralization does not mean at all that ATC leaders can refuse some functions and narrow the scope of their responsibility, — emphasized

Natalia Romanova

. Therefore, each community should have a leader responsible for coordinating measures in the field of preventing and combating domestic violence and gender-based violence, and appropriate interdepartmental councils and mobile brigades of socio-psychological support for victims of violence should be created.

In her speech

Nina Lemesh

– Director of the Department of Family, Youth and Sports of the Regional State Administration, emphasized that Ukrainian legislation requires executive authorities and local self-government bodies to direct management decisions to carry out high-quality preventive work to prevent violence; create a system of social and psychological services and adopt comprehensive programs at the local level. At the level of district state administrations and cities of regional subordination, this system operates. However, in newly created ATCs, people do not always realize its extraordinary importance and the personal responsibility of the community leadership for its social well-being – funds for this are allocated on a final basis or are not allocated at all, so they do not have the appropriate specialists who would coordinate measures to combat domestic violence. The Director of the Department also noted that currently there are only 20 mobile teams of socio-psychological assistance to victims of domestic violence in the region, of which 12 are in the regions of the region, 6 in the AH and 2 in Novgorod-Siversk and Pryluky.

Separately,

Natalia Romanova

emphasized that the decentralization process does not mean that the heads of AHs can abandon some functions and narrow the scope of their responsibilities. Therefore, each community should have a leader responsible for coordinating measures in the field of preventing and combating domestic violence and gender-based violence, and appropriate interdepartmental councils and mobile teams of socio-psychological support for victims of violence should be established.

Since the patrol police play an important role in identifying victims of domestic violence,

Serhiy Goncharo

in – inspector of the administrative practice department of the patrol police department in Chernihiv region noted that for the mechanism to work fully, it is necessary to train both precinct and patrol police officers on identifying and providing assistance to victims of domestic violence and mechanisms for interacting with all structures. He especially emphasized that work with perpetrators should be carried out in a real way – they should understand the real responsibility for committing domestic violence.

The head of programs of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights

Nataliya Kulikova

also emphasized the strengthening of responsibility for committing domestic violence in accordance with the legislation since 2019. She specifically noted that it is really necessary to explain and train police officers to identify victims of human trafficking and interact with other actors, and the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights is ready to conduct such training.

— Changes in Ukrainian legislation allow us to punish domestic aggressors quite severely, — said the acting head of the regional state administration. — There are tools for punishment, but are they fully applied in practice? It depends on how coordinated all relevant structures are.

One of such tools recently introduced in Ukraine is urgent restraining orders. According to the deputy head of the police station officers’ department of the National Police Headquarters in the region

Kostyantyn Feshchenko

, since May 21 of this year, such a preventive measure has been applied in 47 cases, including 15 cases involving women.

Summing up the meeting of the Interdepartmental Council,

Natalia Romanova

once again emphasized that the work to prevent and combat domestic violence must be clearly coordinated at all levels of government and aimed at a clear result: society must become free from violence, victims must gain access to quality services, and perpetrators must be held accountable for their actions.