NextGen carries out bullying countermeasures events in schools starting from the beginning of February

On February 4, members of the UNBA NextGen Youth Committee held a round table on the role of advocates in the process of counteracting bullying in schools.

Vitalii Vlasiuk, member of the NextGen Committee and Vladislav Vlasiuk, Director General of the Directorate for Human Rights, access to justice and legal awareness of the Ministry of Justice, jointly with the UNBA representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Mykhailo Dyadenko acted as speakers of the event. The round table was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, teachers of the Kiev schools. The public sector was represented by the White Ribbon in Ukraine, whose activities are aimed at overcoming the silence of domestic violence in post-soviet countries, as well as the public association "Healthy Childhood Without Borders."

Vitalii Vlasiuk, advocate and member of the NextGen Committee, expressed his vision of the role of an advocate in countering bullying and outlined the functions that he thinks should be performed by the advocate in question, namely:

• protecting the victims of bullying;
• providing legal assistance to probable offenders;
• compliance for educational institutions;
• understanding that each of us should not be afraid to talk about it with our children at home and in schools, because there is an important task to raise children's tolerance and respect for the person.

On February 14, members of the UNGA NextGen Youth Committee, Olena Mironenko-Shulgan and Vitalii Vlasiuk, held a legal education session for the 5th and 6th grade pupils at Kyiv Lyceum No. 157. The situation at this school became known to the general public through a conflict between the father of one of the students and a teacher of physical education, as a result of which he was seriously injured.

During the lesson Olena Mironenko-Shulgan and Vitalii Vlasiuk spoke about the counteraction of the bullying and misleading children for the purpose of their kidnapping.

The law "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Combating Bullying (Harassment)" came into force on January 19, 2019.

The law defined bullying as "the act of participants of the educational process, which consists in psychological, physical, economic, sexual violence, including the use of electronic communications, committed in relation to a minor or a under-aged or by such a person in relation to other participants of the educational process, which could lead or led to mental or physical health harm of the victim ". The term was introduced into the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses (supplemented by Article 173-4), which provides for a fine of 50 to 100 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens (from 850 or 1700 UAH) or public works for a period of 20 to 40 hours.

If harassment is committed by a group of people or repeated within a year after imposing an administrative penalty, then the fine will be from 100 to 200 non-taxable minimum incomes (from 1700 or 3400 UAH) public works for a period of 40 to 60 hours.

The law provides for punishment for harassment committed by minors or aged 14 to 16 - imposition of a fine on parents or persons who replace them, in the amount of 50 to 100 non-taxable minimum incomes, or public works for a period of twenty to forty hours.

The above-mentioned law also amended the Law of Ukraine "On Education". From now on the schools will conduct prevention, review applications for bullying cases, and publish on their websites rules of conduct at school.

About 150 million children are harassed in the world - every second student ages 13 to 15 years.

According to the Ministry of Education, in 2017 there were about 109 thousand complaints received from psychologists concerning harassment in the Ukrainian schools. In particular, 39% of all appeals were received from children. Another 29% of hits were recorded from teachers, 5% - from outsiders, the rest - from parents. The Ministry of Justice believes that about 70% of children in Ukraine are facing bullying

A photo album of the round table can be viewed here.