November- December 2018 the monitoring visits of the representatives of the Ombudsperson Office in Ukraine have been conducted to Poltava (15-16 November), Dnipropetrovsk (28-30 November) and Sumy (11-12 December) regions.

Activities were initiated by the Ombudsperson Office and  supported by the Project “Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Building Solutions”.

The monitoring teams consisted of the specialists of the Department of Human Rights Protection of IDPs of the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and regional public coordinators of the Ombudsperson Office.

The teams were visiting departments of social protection, Pension Fund Units and the branches of “Oschadbank” bank identifying potential violations of the human rights of internally displaced persons and other persons affected by the conflict.

The visits were finalized by the follow up working meetings with the representatives of state institutions, local authorities, centers for free legal aid provision and NGOs. These meetings aimed at discussing the findings of the visits provided a space to reflect on improvement of current legislation related to integration of internally displaced persons and to elaborate recommendations on advancing existing administrative mechanisms.

As a result of the visits systemic issues related to payment of social allowances and pensions arrears to IDPs were confirmed. Recommendations to improve the current legislative acts will be sent by the Ombudsperson Office to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.