Kyiv, October 8, 2015. Civil society representatives have presented achievements of the National Strategy in the field of human rights of internally displaced persons (IDP). These findings will be transferred to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, according to the activists during a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. According to Elena Vinogradova, advocacy expert of the Right to Defense Ukrainian Charitable Foundation, the main proposals are to develop a national strategy on relations between the state and IDPs till 2020; to develop a complex state program on IDP adaptation, integration and reintegration; to make management decisions on establishing a single central executive body for coordinating state policy in the sphere of internal migrants’ rights and freedoms.
In addition, activists propose that the National Strategy for Human Rights should guarantee IDPs’ rights to education and health; ensure the interests of people with special needs and disabilities; the right to housing, and provide compensation for lost housing in the occupied territories, said Vinogradova. Another demand is registering immigrants’ civil status, particularly births and deaths. “Unfortunately, now the state offers only a judicial procedure for recognizing births and deaths in the occupied or uncontrolled territories. Developing and implementing administrative procedures of registration would be an important step in ensuring IDPs’ rights,” said Vinogradova.
According to Yulia Halahan, Coordinator of the Resource Center, which includes a number of NGOs, their focus is on protecting migrants’ rights, working with government agencies, and regional support of NGOs. “The main task of our Resource Center is developing a common position and presenting it as a single and coherent strategy” said Halahan.
Tamila Tasheva, co-founder and coordinator of the Krym-SOS public initiative, which is part of the Resource Center, informed that since September a special program has been launched regarding freelance advisors of the Minister of Social Policy on internally displaced persons. There are 27, 25 regional and 2 national legale advisers across Ukraine. “We decided to provide an opportunity for addressing the legal advisors through the Resource Center callcenter. Thus, any migrant who cannot solve a problem, for example, by contacting the NGO, applies to a single Resource Center callcenter for solving some issues and requests to speak with, for example, an adviser in the Vinnytsa region,” explained Tasheva. The callcenter numbers are: 095 377-70-14, 068 985-18-00, 093 164-78-85, (044) 364-37-34.
Resource Center lawyers also analyze legislative initiatives on migrant issues and prepare analytical reports on the situation with this category of citizens, said Olha Kuryshko, lawyer of the Resource Center. “In September, Resource Center member organizations provided about 4000 consultations for internally displaced persons. Mostly people apply for humanitarian and medical aid. Also, people frequently apply for legal issues. They have become more specific and their issue often requires procedural specialist support to provide secondary legal aid,” said Kuryshko.
