TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN IN UKRAINE

Section 1Analysis of legislation on prevention of torture and ill-treatment of childrenForms of degrading treatment can also take different forms. They are notalways linked with actual inflicting of pain however the suffering which suchtreatment causes also hurts a person and their sense of individuality, self-esteemand self-acceptance. Degrading treatment can accordingly be linkedwith intimidation, placing a person in conditions where they cease to feel likeequal members of society and begin to focus solely on instincts and physiologicalrequirements. Unfortunately legal tools and positive experience ofapplication of the law in Ukraine do not make it possible to give a more specificdefinition of these concepts.We should note that the content of the above-mentioned concepts iselucidated by judgments from the European Court of Human Rights findingviolations of Article 3 of the European Convention. In accordance with the Lawon Implementing Judgments and Applying European Court of Human RightsCase-law, the Court’s judgments are a source of law in the Ukrainian legal system.1.2. Basic codified normative acts in UkraineUkraine’s Penal Code sets out as one of the tasks before legislation on penalissues the prevention of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.This rule fully applies to convicted minors (children). That is, both thisCode, and penal legislation as a whole, should be so formulated as to not leaveany place for torture and ill-treatment, and should also have the appropriatemechanisms for ensuring the conditions for serving sentences where thereis no torture or ill-treatment. In the legislators’ view, it is at the level of a normativeact that the quality should be ensured which makes torture or othermanifestations of ill-treatment of a child impossible. However that is the singlemention of torture in the entire Code, with other parts of the document notcontaining or explaining how ill-treatment and torture are prevented, or anymechanism which makes the use of torture difficult, impossible or undesirable.Bearing in mind that convicted prisoners are people who have already experiencedcertain restrictions and do not have general access to mechanismsfor countering or complaining of torture, the lack of safeguarding norms andmechanisms is an unsatisfactory feature of the legislative act.This is not the only mention in the Code of minors. The Penal Code containsa separate chapter 21 which sets out the specific features of types of37