9-10 July, Kyiv: Equal Opportunities and Women's Rights in Ukraine Programme (a joint project of UNDP, European Union and Sida) together with the Ministry of Interior Affairs have conducted the seminar "Monitoring of activities of Interior affairs structures on the issue of domestic violence"/ The workshop covered Regional Assistants to the Minister of Interior Affairs of Ukraine.

In the beginning of the seminar, Larysa Kobelyanska, Project Coordinator, noted that preventing domestic violence has been one of the main components of Equal Opportunities and Women's Rights in Ukraine Programme. Important efforts are made to provide essential capacity building programmes and special trainings for district police officers.

However, to develop well-targeted initiatives and training programmes it requires having a reliable and accurate evaluation of the current situation in this field. It is necessary to develop key indicators allowing to conduct accurate assessment of the work of district police officers, many experts agree. This is why this joint EU-funded and UNDP-led Project initiates the development of proper monitoring tools.

"It is very positive the Regional Assistants to the Minister of Interior Affairs of Ukraine would be engaged in conducting this assessment. They are not subordinated to local administrations and report directly to the Minister", said Larysa Kobelyanska.

Kateryna Levchenko, Advisor to the Minister of Interior Affairs, Head of International Centre "La Strada", confirmed that district police officers played important roles in preventing and overcoming domestic violence.

Indeed, they have direct contacts with victims and perpetrators. However, they tend to intervene only when the situation in the family becomes unbearable. There feels a lack of preventive work.

Oleksandr Musienko, Head inspector of the Inerior Ministry's Civil Security Department, told the workshop participants about the difficulties district police officers encounter in their work. For example, low salaries induce high labour turnover in this sector. In 1990-1997 district police officers were appointed based on their experience and skills. They were mostly captains. But today, district police officers are mainly lieutenants, with a salary of as low as UAH 1,500 [about EUR 145] per month.

Ella Lamakh, Head of Department of family and gender policy (Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport of Ukraine), added that similar problems existed within regional social centres for family, children and youth. The centres, often, suffer from a severe lack of skilled staff, especially psychologists and legal experts because of low wages (UAH 700-800 [appr. EUR 80] per month). It is a real problem as these centres are supposed to operate as main support hubs for district police officers reporting the cases of domestic violence.

Kateryna Levchenko said having new accurate indicators and clear structure was very important for upcoming monitoring of domestic violence prevention activities among police officers. She assured the planned evaluation monitoring would be conducted by the Assistants to the Minister of Interior Affairs and it would be based on existing statistic data and reports. The district police officers will not have to spend more time than necessary on preparing any additional documents or reports.

In conclusion, the workshop participants discussed overall police work in preventing domestic violence along main indicators of their activities. They also developed main ideas and foundations of an efficient monitoring in accordance with the State policy on preventing domestic violence.

The participants defined a system of indicators for assessing district police officers that could be used in practical activities.

The preliminary results of domestic violence prevention activities assessment among police officers will be available later in September this year.

Editor's Note: in Ukraine, 14,126 district police officers are employed while actual demand is 15,509 policemen. According to the existing norms, one district policeman should service 2,200 rural ihabitants and 3,000 urban residents.

For more information, contact Mykola Yabchenko (Equal Opportunities and Women's Rights in Ukraine Programme): +38 044 569 40 75, mykola.yabchenkoATundp.org.ua.