New National Human Rights Strategy adopted
On October 12, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree approving the new National Human Rights Strategy which entered into force on October 15, the day of its publication. This is the third document of its kind outlining the strategic goals and principles of ensuring and protecting human rights and freedoms in Ukraine: the first Strategy was adopted in 2015, after the victory of the Revolution of Dignity and the adoption of Ukraine’s course for European integration, the second in 2021, after the election of Volodymyr Zelensky as President, and the current one is aimed at fulfilling Ukraine’s obligations within the framework of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union — particularly, in accordance with the Roadmap on the Rule of Law. The new Strategy was developed by the Ministry of Justice in close cooperation with civil society human rights organizations, including the LGBTQ movement.
For the first time, the National Human Rights Strategy directly mentions the protection of LGBTQ+ rights. One of the operational objectives of the Strategy is to uphold LGBTQ+ rights, and the challenges in this area are described as follows:
“LGBTQ+ remain one of the groups at increased risk of discrimination, hate speech and other manifestations of intolerance (hate). Sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sexual characteristics need to be reflected more clearly and consistently in legislation, particularly in the provisions regulating liability for criminal offenses motivated by intolerance and in mechanisms for protection against discrimination. Besides, there remain problems related to the lack of awareness of LGBTQ+ people about the mechanisms for protecting their rights, insufficient level of trust in state authorities and existing mechanisms for protecting rights, fears of stigmatization, etc. As a result, a significant part of victims do not seek help, even if there are grounds for protecting their rights provided for by law.
Mechanisms for LGBTIQ+ access to social protection, administrative, social, medical, educational and other services, and legal aid need to be further improved.”
It is noteworthy that the Rule of Law Roadmap mentioned in the Strategy provides for the adoption of several bills aimed at protecting LGBTQ rights — in particular, amendments to criminal, administrative, and anti-discrimination legislation, where sexual orientation and gender identity should be included in the list of protected characteristics, as well as the introduction of registered civil partnerships available to same-sex couples. The adoption of such legislation is also provided for in the benchmarks formulated by the European Commission to assess the readiness of our country for EU accession.
The next task is to develop a new Action Plan to implement the National Strategy, which, however, will certainly include all the provisions contained in the Roadmap. Nash Svit Center, which participated in the development of both the Roadmap and the National Strategy, together with other Ukrainian LGBTQ organizations will provide its proposals for the new Plan.
