The most serious problems in the sphere of child’s rights currently in Ukraine are child neglect, homelessness, a big percentage of poor families with children, increasing quantity of orphans, criminality among minors and trafficking in children.

Experts suppose that ensuring child’s rights in Ukraine is impossible without the support of the state, the main directions of its legal policy are to be the further reforming the system of the normative-legal ensuring protection of this category of the society and considerable increasing the level of legal education and legal instruction of children and youth that will become the condition guaranteeing positive changes in this sphere in the near future. 

On April 26 in the capital’s House of Teacher the presentation of the handbook on informational and methodological materials “Child’s rights: modern experience and innovations” was held, in which for the first time in the home literature materials about the history and modern state of the institute of the commissioner on human rights are presented.    

The handbook was prepared by the Christian child fund in association with the Ministry of youth and sport, the Institute of pedagogy and psychology of professional education.

The main purpose of the handbook, according to its authors, became elucidating the accumulated and national experience on child’s rights, including materials giving ideas about new approaches, models which promote ensuring child’s rights, particularly, their right for active participation in the process of taking decisions.

The presented materials are guiding lines in concrete actions for implementation the provisions of the UN Convention on child’s rights. The book is intended first of all for specialists-practitioners, whose professional activity is connected with children and youth, but the publishers hope for the financial support of the Ministry of youth and sport to print an extra edition so that as many people as possible, including children, could familiarize with it.

As Iryna Kozhukhova, mother-educator of one of the children houses of family type in the Crimea pointed out during the presentation, the government represented by the city executive committees which according to the law are the bodies of care for children deprived of parents’ care, most often violate child’s rights themselves. According to her, the aid of the statesmen usually lies in their coming once a year as Santa Clause with gifts.

But it’s necessary to remember that Santa Clause is able only to help children believe in a fairy tale, and representatives of the state government bodies must direct efforts to ensuring child’s rights, implement international mechanisms of their protection. Surely, if they wish to develop a sound, fair, democratic society.

Olena Holiuk

RUPOR