A forced survival test
The Law “On status and rights of displaced persons,” which has been approved by the parliament, is not a panacea, experts say and advise to create a long-term strategy of supporting this category of citizens
Last week the Verkhovna Rada at last approved the law which defines the legal status of people who are leaving the eastern regions and the Crimea. It envisages that these persons will received a forced migrant certificate with a term of action of one year, have the right for money assistance from the state, choice of a place of living, medical and social services, as well as the money compensation for the property they have lost as a result of the occupation or ATO. Apart from that, the government does not exclude a possibility that a ministry for the affairs of displaced persons will be created. But experts see no sense in this, saying that for solving the problems it would be enough for the acting bodies of power to work properly. Even the law on displaced persons which has been approved by the parliament is not a panacea. It is worth of thinking already now, what to do with these people in a few months, create long-time strategies of their support.
Another demand to the power is to improve the coordination between departments and civic organizations. So far there has been no dialog. For example, at a special meeting public activists asked the representative of the Ministry of Social Policy Maryna Martynovska what the department is doing now to evacuate people, in particular, children. She replied that this is not the competence of the ministry, and that offices involved with coordination and solving problems with accommodation and employment of these people have been created in every region. Den has already written about the efficiency of the work of these offices: their phones often do not answer; they readdress the call to volunteers or simply write down the phone number of the victims and promise to call back.
Another question addressed to the departments referred to children who are now in children’s camps. Parents of these children appeal to the civic initiatives and tell that the 21-day term of their stay will soon be over and it is planned to return them home, where the battles are now taking place. The stand of the Ministry of the Social Policy is as follows: they are negotiating with the Ministry of Finance to find money and prolong the term of these children’s stay. But why haven’t they done this before? Why are people who have recently left the dangerous area and united to help migrants like them predicting now what problems they will face in a couple of months, and the state authorities shift responsibility on one another?
The state has only started to implement pilot projects and initiatives. The governmental portal published a report that programs on cooperation and coordination of actions of all social services that will be solving problems of people who have left Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts for some period of time are being drafted in Sviatohorsk. Later this method will be spread to other regions. Meanwhile, the representatives of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner on Human Rights say that the algorithm of actions should be totally different.
“Migration service centers should be created on the border with Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,” says Iryna Kushnir, a representative of the Ombudsperson, “At first the displaced persons need to reach such center where they will be given the number of places guaranteed by the state where they can settle. They should take into account their social connections while choosing a place and later appeal to the state migration service where their place of settlement is located, apply for settlement and status of forced migrants, and their questions should be examined immediately. When the person receives a certificate of a forced migrant, this information should be sent to the Ministry of Social Policy, territorial bodies of power, which should start to solve all the humanitarian questions. We have a problem when in the places of concentrated settlement, the state structures do not communicate or contact with these people; we have an information vacuum there. Therefore every 15 days all bodies of power should hold on-site receptions of citizens, give consultations, gather statements, and solve all the problems.”
Over the past few weeks the dynamics of calls to the hot lines of volunteer initiatives has doubled. And the military actions are only one of the factors. Former resident of Luhansk, who works in the human-rights protection center “Postup,” Kostiantyn Reutsky says that people are trying to escape persecution for pro-Ukrainian moods, journalists – for highlighting the events, businessmen – because they are forced to pay taxes to LPR or DPR. “We can see now another wave of migrants. They have started to leave the territory of Luhansk oblast in thousands every day. There are huge problems with getting out of the area. The separatists don’t want the mass media to show a picture of mass resettlement, therefore they make people refuse from this idea. People are not allowed to go through many checkpoints, they are taken prisoners; buses which have been organized by civic initiatives are stopped.”
For many people everything starts with the lack of money to buy a ticket for a train. The state does not give any guaranties. If they manage to leave the ATO area, where can they go? Lviv, Kyiv, and Odesa are overcrowded now. Natalia Udovenko from East SOS Initiative notes that big cities like Kyiv attract the migrants because they can find a job there and because the central government authorities are located there. People think that it will be easier for them to get their rights protected. Odesa, Volyn, Cherkasy, and Dnipropetrovsk are receiving know the biggest numbers of migrants. The volunteers note that the south regions which have resources, recreation facilities and resorts, are passive, they do not offer to settle people. On the other hand, the Ministry of Social Policy says that there are 15,000 places for displaced persons in Transcarpathia and western regions, which can still receive the migrants.
For some reason this information is not spread where it is supposed to be spread. Olena Luniova, a representative of the monitoring mission of the UN on human rights, notes that lack of information is by far the biggest problem. To organize the departure of people some charity foundations stick announcements even in shops. How are people supposed to get the information from governmental authorities in the places where there is no Internet or phone connections?
“The resources of the volunteers are exhausted, there should be support from the state,” Luniova adds. “Last week we offered to create a volunteer center where representatives of the Ministry of Social Policy, State Registration Service would work too on the basis of the ODA, because it is rational when all services are located in one place. There should be a strategy on providing information on what to do with people who have been left without home already now, not in September when it gets cold.”