The war in Ukraine continues to impose extraordinary challenges on civilians. Children in Ukraine are among the most vulnerable, and there seems to be no end to this disaster. Our program provides assistance today and hope for future for disadvantaged Ukrainian children: https://helpchildreninukraine.org/
In our series of articles we started to analyze the idiosyncrasies of the juvenile justice system in Ukraine and appeal for much needed reform in this area, even now, during the time of the war. The lack of appropriate legislation and protection of children created a whole subculture in schools where more criminally inclined teenagers terrorize their peers and smaller children on a range of instances, like vigorously taking away other children cell phones (which are sold easily on local cell phone markets), humiliating their peers in any possible way, threatening them, making them bring/steel items from their homes, etc.
According to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine 26% of younger school children (boys/girls, rural/urban almost equally) have experienced violence from older children from their school. Another serious consequence is that utilizing this breach in legislation and practices, criminally behaved adults take advantage of youth below the age of 16 in planned criminal activism. Examples of this include drug trafficking (every 5th school child has tried drugs in Ukraine, an unimaginable situation as compared to the Soviet Union times of Ukraine’s history), organized crime where children under 16 y.o. perform the actual crime actions. Furthermore, during investigation and at court hearings of group criminal activities teenagers under 16 y.o. are asked/pushed to say that they were the ones who performed the criminal act, when it’s not the case, while ensuring no prosecution is initiated and those who are actually to blame are set free. This is one side of the problem. The other side of the problem is that children aged 16 – 18 fall in the same laws and prosecution practices as adults. This means that if a child aged 16 stole any item costing more than 50 Hrn. ($10), s/he can be sued to 3 years in prison, just like adult criminal practices. Up to 80% of small thefts done by minors are attempted to get money for food. Recent example: in Kharkiv, a 16-year old from a poor family recently stole an old bicycle to get money for food, was caught and received a 3-year sentence.
Practical experience shows that a 16 year old getting into prison loses his/her social ties, enters a new “social development”. Essentially, the system is currently making a criminal individual out of somebody who might be easily helped and rehabilitated. Alternative methods of punishment theoretically exist in the law, but they are not used for that same reason – – there are very few specialists in Ukraine in the area of juvenile justice and virtually no juvenile care takers. Thus it’s easier for a judge in the court hearing to just punish a 16 y.o. as an adult and isolate him/her from the society, as no realistic mechanism and human resources are in place to rehabilitate him/her. Importantly, prisons in Ukraine are not rehabilitative institutions with a set of major internal problems, further imposing a criminal pattern of behavior for youth who were sent to prisons. Finally, after returning from prison, there is no institution or plan that would take care of the person who went to prison at age 16. About 20,000 minors total are convicted in Ukraine annually.
Reform in the juvenile justice area is greatly needed, however, political parties in Ukraine are not pursuing this reform today, obviously because of the war. Our group of children experts observes all developments with orphans and vulnerable children in Ukraine. Please consider joining our individual sponsorship program for the most at-risk children in Ukraine.
