TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN IN UKRAINE

Torture and ill-treatment of children in Ukraineto criminal offenses. The legislator cannot provide a separate upkeep of suchcategories of children. And their joint holding will necessarily lead to harmfulinfluence of children, who have committed criminal offenses, on those, whoare in temporary detention centers for other reasons.The text of the bill shows that the status of institutions of detention isformulated in a way that leaves no doubt that these institutions are punitive.There remains no place in them for education and correction. Moreover, allsuggestions actually mean establishment of new prisons. In this case, the regulationof these institutions is inadequate and insufficient. If these institutionsof detention achieve a status of closed institutions, they will need a carefullyregulated regime in this institution, legal status of children kept there, plan ofthe day and necessary types and order of training and educational activitieswith children. The regulation of all these institutions must comply with bothinternational acts and penal legislation of Ukraine.In view of the deficiencies, the proposed amendments to the legislationare unacceptable and contradictory.Back in 2009, the Law of Ukraine No. 1065-VI sanctioned the National Program“National Action Plan to Implement the UN Convention on the Rights ofthe Child” (“National Program”) for the period up to 2016. The purpose of PartII of the National Program is, among other things, to bring conditions of detentionin special institutions for children in line with international standards. Initem 4.8 of the section “Protecting the rights of children, who have committedoffenses”, inter alia, the following activities are mentioned:— Improvement of monitoring of abidance by the human rights andcreation of conditions for children in remand houses for children ofthe agencies of internal affairs, investigation isolation wards, specialeducational institutions of the State Department of Ukraine for Enforcementof Sentences, social rehabilitation schools and vocationalschools of social rehabilitation of the education bodies;— Studying of the possibility of establishing a system of juvenile justice inthe framework of the reform of the judicial system in order to improvenational legislation on child protection, improvement of prophylacticmaintenance to prevent committing crimes and other offenses bychildren, creation of an effective system of rehabilitation of juvenileoffenders.Currently, the section “Protecting the rights of children, who have committedoffenses” contains as follows:88