Doctrinal approaches to criminal-law features of domestic violence against children

During Ukraine’s independence, the state has consistently taken measures to shape, implement, and strengthen policies in the field of protecting the rights and freedoms of children. The article provides a criminal-law characterization of domestic violence against children. Emphasizing that human life and health, honor and dignity, inviolability and safety are recognized in Ukraine as the highest social value (part 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine), and the rights and freedoms of individuals and their guarantees determine the content and direction of the state’s activity, and the assertion and protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals are the main duty of the state (part 2 of Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine), it can be confidently stated that the object of domestic violence is an absolute value, and encroachments on it have a socially dangerous nature. Ukrainian criminal legislation protects social relations involving children or in their interests, with the aim of providing criminal-law means to create conditions for the normal physical, mental, and moral-spiritual development of the child. The unlawfulness of parents’ actions is mostly associated with their child-rearing and stems from contradictions between the upbringing process in the actions of parents and permissible actions in legal norms. The nature of the family upbringing process requires formulating the issue of using physical force against the will of the child not as permissible but as a necessary measure. It is emphasized that physical punishments are recognized as violence based on the presence of signs of actions against the will of the child and those that degrade dignity based on causing harm to the feeling of one’s own dignity. The resolution of the issue of applying force to a child as a method of upbringing is based on recognizing the child as an absolutely autonomous subject, which contradicts the existing partial legal capacity and parental responsibility.