Oral statement of BICE and WCU at 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council

41st session of the Human Rights Council Geneva, 24 June – 12 July 2019 Item 10: Regular periodic update on Ukraine Mr. President, The International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) and the Women Consortium of Ukraine (WCU) appreciate the updated information provided on the human rights situation in Ukraine and would like to focus on the acute issue of the prevention and the response to child sexual abuse phenomenon in Ukraine.

A number of steps undertaken in recent years in Ukraine have led to some achievements for an integrated approach towards the elimination of violence against children. They include: - The adoption of the law on “Preventing and Combatting Domestic Violence” in 2019; - The 2017 “Polina” Pilote Project on Domestic Violence Police response network is an encouraging achievement that produces hopeful results as a pilot project launched in 2017; - The capacity building courses based on child-friendly methods and practices to police officers by UN Agencies and local experts had a great impact on the police operations.

- The newly established Cyber Police which requires the establishment of a specialized unit to investigate online children sexual abuse crimes and lead the safety operations on the Internet.

- In May 2019, the Council of Europe announced the launching of a project to support juvenile police and civil-society organizations to prevent and combat online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Despite these achievements, many challenges with regard to the fight against child sexual abuse in line with SDGs 16.2 need to be duly addressed. Our organizations would like to point out that the ongoing reforms (decentralization, education, healthcare and police), have not given due attention to the right of the child, including violence against children, especially children who suffer sexual violence. According the Council of Europe, every 5th child in Ukraine suffered sexual violence. The National Police fixes approximately 4’300 cases of sexual violence per year. However, only 10% of cases are investigated and less than 2% of them reach the court. In addition, only 1.5% of children victims receive counseling, psychological and legal support and assistance.

According to a study conducted by WCU this year, children are not aware about services they can refer to when they are at risk and hesitate to contact police. The study found out that all statistics on alleged sexual violence against children from all responsible government bodies are not properly collected and centralized. Children victims of abuse and/or their legal representatives do not report to the police as criminal processes and court trials continue to be long and tiresome with numerous repeated interviews of a child victim due to the lack of green rooms for the interviews for children victims and lack of professionals trained to conduct these interviews.

Therefore, BICE and WCU call on Ukraine to: - Take all necessary practical and concrete measures to ensure an effective implementation of Lanzarote Convention, including its article 35 (Interviews with the child) to ensure the establishment of child-friendly rooms for the interview of children victims and proper trainings for professionals; - Introduce an effective formal sexual education at schools for children to be able to identify risks and to know services they can report to; - Develop mechanism of provision of rehabilitation services for children victims; - Launch mechanisms of urgent response to sexual violence against children available 24 hours a day 7 days a week throughout the country.

- Ensure internet providers and ICT industry set up on the web and other accessible public online products, safety nets that inform children about potential danger, how children can get help and allow for abuse reporting.

Thank you Mr. President.