Tetiana Kovalchuk: The Ministry of Internal Affairs is interested in the studied effective international approaches to combating domestic violence
This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine today, March 5, during the opening of the training “Strengthening the effectiveness of interdepartmental cooperation in the field of prevention and counteraction of gender-based violence and domestic violence” for employees of state authorities. The three-day training is supported by the United Nations Population Fund and the British Embassy in Ukraine.
As Tatiana Kovalchuk emphasized, the series of specialized interdepartmental trainings initiated by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Mission in Ukraine is very relevant, both for law enforcement officers and for the entire Ukrainian society.
“Domestic violence is one of the most widespread forms of human rights violations. As a rule, it is women, children and the elderly who suffer the most from family violence. In addition, in Ukraine, as in many other countries, the existing statistics on gender-based violence and domestic violence do not reflect the real situation. And this does not make it possible to fully assess the scope of the problem and its trends, especially in the context of armed conflict. Therefore, both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other actors carrying out measures in the field of prevention and combating domestic violence should be well acquainted with international approaches in order to ensure the creation of opportunities to counter this phenomenon and their application at the local and national levels in Ukraine,” the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stressed.
Tatiana Kovalchuk outlined the role of the Ministry of Internal Affairs system in interdepartmental cooperation on combating domestic violence and gender-based violence. In particular, it was about the successful introduction in 2017 of the police network against domestic violence “POLINA”. The project was launched with the support of the United Nations Population Fund.
The meeting was also attended by the representative of the President of Ukraine in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Iryna Lutsenko, Deputy Minister of Social Policy Natalia Fedorovich, representatives of the Human Rights Monitoring Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Prevention of the National Police of Ukraine, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and public organizations. And, as the participants of the event emphasized, there is every reason to assert that specialized training of specialists in the field of combating gender-based violence and violence in the family will ensure a clear and coordinated interdepartmental interaction of actors in the fight against these types of crimes.
Based on the results of the training, a practical algorithm of interdepartmental interaction will be developed at both local and national levels.
Department of Communications of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
