The Law Enforcement Committee together with the
Council of Europe Office in Ukraine and the NGO Ukrainian Institute for the
Future held an online conference on “Legal protection of children from sexual
exploitation and prevention of re-victimization of children in criminal
proceedings.”
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), among the surveyed minors aged 14 to 18, every tenth child showed his naked body, and every 14th had sex for a fee. A few years ago, Ukraine was one of the five countries producing child pornography and one of the ten leaders in its distribution, and now Ukraine is among the top 3 suppliers of child pornography in the world.
One of the reasons for this situation, MP Pavlo Frolov called the imperfection of existing legislation, which does not have the ability to respond to new threats, including on the Internet. He said that in addition to the draft law no. 3055 on the implementation of the Lanzarote Convention, a draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code is currently being prepared, which aims to ensure the criminal proceedings involving children in the best interests of the child, regardless of his procedural status, and for to minimize the risks of re-victimization of children during criminal proceedings.
Acting The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Olena Lytvynenko noted that the issue of protection of children's rights was and remains extremely important for the Council of Europe and the Office willingly joins the recently launched project ‘Combating Violence against Children.’
Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children's Rights Mykola Kuleba in his speech said that, unfortunately, there are more and more crimes related to sexual violence against children in Ukraine, including crimes where children are increasingly involved in the production of pornographic content. He noted that very often the perpetrators are the child's parents or relatives. In this case, it is very difficult to provide legal assistance to the injured child.
According to him, due to the lack of proper legal protection for the child, all court hearings take place without the child's representative and often criminals are released on bail, which is a clear exposure of the child to danger. M. Kuleba called repeated interrogations of a child in a trial a problem, because a child must testify at least three times, which leads to re-traumatization of a child who has already experienced violence. Also, the child often has to testify in the presence of the abuser.
During the online conference, the main provisions of the draft Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention)” no. 3055 were presented. Victoria Mozgova, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, introduced them. Naomi Trevinnard, an international expert of the Council of Europe, presented the results of the analysis of the draft Law from the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine.
During the online conference, the provisions of the necessary legislative changes to improve criminal proceedings involving minors were also presented.
In general, during the event there was an expert discussion of the state of criminal counteraction to sexual exploitation of children in Ukraine, the problem of secondary victimization of victims of violence during their participation in criminal proceedings and legislative shortcomings of such proceedings with minors in Ukraine and its compliance with international standards.