Human rights activists discuss idea of conducting nationwide survey about human rights in Ukraine

The human rights base line study, a nationwide survey to find out how Ukrainians understand the human rights, will be held in 2016, for the first time in the history of Ukraine.

Its findings will be useful for the work of the human rights organizations enabling them to more effectively build strategies and tactics of awareness raising campaigns, to develop formal and informal human rights education and to form data-based approaches and priorities for donor activities in the field of human rights.

The brainstorming session “Human Rights in Ukraine: Starting Point” to discuss the concept of future study was held in the office of the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine on May 24.

Opening the event, Yulia Shcherbynina (United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine), Mykhailo Chaplyha (Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights) and Tetyana Pechonchyk (Human Rights Information Centre) presented the idea of ​​holding the study.

The session participants discussed the purpose, tasks and expected results of a nationwide survey on human rights, the individual target groups of respondents, the key issues and thematic units that should be included in the questionnaire.

In addition, the desk research was presented – the analysis of preliminary data, including the relevant international experience in conducting such studies. This analysis was prepared by Volodymyr Yavorsky, the expert of the Human Rights Information Centre.

The event was attended by representatives of such organizations as the Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation, the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms, the Educational Human Rights House – Chernihiv, the Institute of Applied Humanitarian Research, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, the All-Ukrainian educational program “Understanding Human Rights”, the Institute of Mass information, the NGO “Insight”, the Reanimation Package of Reforms initiative, the Centre for Civil Liberties, the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, the Association UMDPL, the International Organization for Migration Mission in Ukraine, the Crimean Human Rights Group, the Coalition “Justice for Peace in Donbas”, the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.

The session participants shared their ideas and thoughts about what they would like to learn from the Ukrainians within the framework of a nationwide survey on human rights, what questions they would like to ask respondents.

The nationwide sociological study on human rights is expected to be useful for Ukrainian human rights organizations to plan their further work.