A delegation of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) has recently visited Ukraine and once again urged our government to establish as soon as possible an institution to protect children’s rights. This is one of the obligations that Ukraine must fulfill acording the UN International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we ratified in 1991.
In 2002 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child again demanded that Ukraine introduce the position of the ombudsperson for children, but things haven’t budged an inch. The ombudsperson monitors conformance to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and, most importantly, considers complaints from children and provides them with legal defense in court. This kind of system has been operating in 60 countries of the world. What prevents Ukraine from taking the same path, and what are we losing because of this? The answers to these questions are provided for The Day by Rimante SALASEVICIUTE, Lithuania’s ombudsperson for children and a member of the ENOC delegation.
Ms. Salaseviciute, what will Ukraine gain from introducing the office of the ombudsperson for children?
“Lithuania has already gone through the period when nobody understood that this is an entirely different office than that the human rights ombudsperson. Similar offices are being introduced in all post-Soviet countries, but the longer the process is delayed the worse. For example, Kazakhstan has already realized that the state should not grudge spending money on this institution. I think that Ukraine will certainly come to this point, too. So far Ukraine’s institution on human rights is doing a lot of declarative and formal things concerning this problem, whereas the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child demands from the state to create welfare for children. When this will happen in Ukraine depends on your government’s political will.”
How was the office of the ombudsperson for children introduced in Lithuania?
“After Lithuania declared its independence, it was resolved that in order to develop democracy, the country needs the institution of the ombudsperson. Lithuania chose the Swedish model with certain modifications; in particular, we added consideration of citizens’ complaints to the functions of the ombudsperson. (In Scandinavian countries the ombudsperson only informs the population about human rights.)
“It was not easy to establish the institution of the ombudsperson, because it needed social recognition and contacts with ministries and various agencies. In 1995 Lithuania ratified and joined the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the office of the ombudsperson was needed to oversee the implementation of this convention. The institution of the ombudsperson for human rights put up resistance: this institution used to receive very few complaints, including a mere six to eight complaints on behalf of children; these mostly referred to the issues of adoption and guardianship. Discussions continued for two years. Now Lithuania has three different ombudspersons: for human rights, for gender equity, and for children’s rights. The first one and the last one have somewhat similar functions in that they both consider citizens’ complaints. However, we set the task of formulating a policy on protecting children’s rights in close cooperation with ministries and government agencies.”
What complaints come to your institution most frequently?
“In the first years of the ombudsperson’s work, an average of 130 complaints per year were received. These were submitted by parents, neighbors, teachers, doctors, and children themselves. In 2005 we received over 400 complaints, and as of Sept. 1, 2008 — over 1,500 appeals for this year. We predict that by the end of 2008 the total number will reach 2,000.
“Their number has increased because we updated our website by adding the ‘Ask and we will answer’ column. Every day our email box receives four or five letters from children asking for advice. They complain about very different things: parents not looking after them, disabled children not receiving health resort packages, etc. Children also complain about teachers who give them low marks or treat them unfairly and about their classmates with whom they cannot get along. We answer all their letters.
“This year we have asked Lithuania’s biggest mobile operator with a request to give us a free-of-charge number so that people could inform us about violations of children’s rights.”
What are the social problems your institution is working on at the moment?
“Problems change from year to year. For example, in 2005 we checked all the orphanages and boadring schools (in Lithuania they receive primarily mentally disabled children): every week we would go to a certain orphanage without advance notice, of course, and identified numerous problems — with nutrition, hygiene, and violence among children and on the part of teachers, etc.
“In 2006 we were solving the problems of adoption and guardianship (we had received many complaints about domestic violence), and also carried out a survey among schoolchildren in order to find out how they were doing, when their parents went to work abroad, etc. Owing to the survey we found out that there are 30,000 children in our country (this is a large number, taking into consideration that Lithuania has a total of over 600,000 children), and also identified their key problems. For example, 32 percent complained about their studies — they did not like it in school because of conflicts with classmates or teachers, while 17 percent of children admitted that they needed help in order to resolve these problems.
“We also monitored families with many children. I think that Ukraine also has this stereotype that families with many children are often asocial, and that they produce so many children just to receive social welfare. We discovered that out of 675,000 children over 150,000 are in families with many children. After analyzing the situation in each such family, we found out that 11 percent of children come from families in the social risk group. Therefore, we applied to the Ministry of Social Security and Labor with the request to reconsider the amount of social welfare for families under the poverty line. (In Lithuania this group includes 17 percent of urban families and 21 percent of families residing in rural areas.) We managed to resolve this problem thanks to the efforts of the mass media, which raised this issue on numerous occasions and appealed to the society to change its attitude to families with many children.”
How much does the system for protecting children’s rights in Ukraine differ from that in Lithuania?
“The problems are very much alike in Ukraine and Lithuania. If there had been more cooperation and understanding in Ukraine between governmental organizations and NGOs that address this problem, your country would have achieved greater results. After visiting many post-Soviet countries, I have noticed that Ukraine differs from them by people’s commitment to their work. However, what you are lacking so far is coordination of actions.
“What regards the problems of children, as I learned from Ukraine’s Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports, your biggest problem is family violence. In the first years after the ombudsperson was introduced, the situation in Lithuania was the same. Now you are talking a lot about the problem of poverty among Ukraine’s population. It exists in Lithuania as well, but on a considerably lower level: 85 percent of your families are poor, whereas in our country the figure is 48 percent. Also, Ukraine has a high death rate of children, and this is an indication that the healthcare system is functioning in a less than adequate way.”
