The meeting of the Working Group with NGOs took place in Kyiv on June 11, 2018

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union was represented by Vitaliya Lebid, lawyer of UHHRU Strategic Litigation Center.

UN experts on enforced disappearances are visiting Ukraine from 11 to 20 June. Their purpose is to study the measures that the state has taken to prevent such incidents. Members of the Working Group will be collecting information on disappearances and meeting with family members of missing persons, government officials and representatives of civil society and the international community.

The topics discussed included legal regulation of disappearances in the occupied territories, the draft law on missing persons (No. 5435), detention facilities of the Security Service of Ukraine and the efficiency of investigations conducted by law enforcement bodies.

“We hope that UN representatives will take into account the comments of non-governmental organizations, and that their recommendations for the government will help improve the situation, particularly the efficiency of investigations into enforced disappearances in eastern Ukraine,” said Vitaliya Lebid.