On 12 November 2020, the Council of Europe presented report findings and recommendations for 2 key reports of the project, “The Istanbul Convention: a tool to advance in fighting violence against women and domestic violence in Ukraine”.

The analytical report, “Risk Assessment Standards and Methodologies for Diverse Stakeholders in Ukraine”, developed by Lori Mann and Tamara Bugaiets in January 2020, provides practical and policy suggestions to support the development and strengthening of the use of risk assessments throughout the Ukrainian criminal justice chain. Through analysis of actual and potential use of Risk Assessment tools at multiple levels of Ukrainian society, Ms Mann developed and shared recommendations, checklists and sample forms to immediately benefit risk assessment efforts by the police and legal professionals as well as educators and social workers in their work with victims of violence against women and domestic violence. This report was one of the sources for GREVIO’s first Third Party Intervention on the Kurt v. Austria case in January 2020 at the European Court of Human Rights.

The second report “Issuing Restraining or Protection Orders in Cases of Domestic Violence in Ukraine” produced by Tamara Buhaiets in October 2020, provides analysis of the Ukrainian national case law, international standards and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.  Ms Buhaiets discussed both her report and its recommendations, which will allow for Ukrainian legal professionals, police, and other professionals to be better placed to improve court proceedings on issuing and extending restraining orders in domestic violence cases.

The presentation was attended by 66 participants including Ukrainian government officials, judges, lawyers, attorneys, police, civil society representatives and media from Kyiv and different regions of Ukraine. The participants demonstrated high interest in the topics and evaluated the reports as very practical, timely and useful for provision of services to victims of violence against women and domestic violence in Ukraine.