Domestic Violence: Current Issues Through the Prism of Legislative Changes

The article is devoted to the study of a problem that is an urgent and negative manifestation of public life not only in Ukraine but also in most foreign countries. Domestic and gender-based violence is one of the most widespread violations of constitutional human rights and freedoms, which not only causes physical pain and moral suffering, but also undermines the sense of security of a person; it is a global problem that daily harms the most valuable human goods - honor, dignity, life and well-being. For Ukraine, as well as for many other countries around the world, this problem is quite acute, so the international community is trying to actively counteract all forms of violence. Violence remains a global phenomenon that causes devastating losses at the social, economic and national level, with domestic violence being a particularly negative form of it. Ukrainian legislation has its own tools for the prevention and fair punishment of such torts, which are reflected in the Law on Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence adopted in 2018 and the relevant amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Thus, Article 126-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine was added to the criminal law, which stipulates that domestic violence is the intentional systematic commission of physical, psychological or economic violence against a spouse or former spouse or another person with whom the perpetrator is (was) in a family or close relationship, which leads to physical or psychological suffering, health disorders, disability, emotional dependence or deterioration in the quality of life of the victim. However, in Ukraine, since the outbreak of full-scale war, law enforcement attention has naturally shifted to war crimes, and the challenges of domestic and gender-based violence have been relegated to the background. With the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, the country faces the problem of standardizing national regulations, which Ukrainian lawmakers have the opportunity to improve guided by international means of overcoming and combating domestic violence. Such mechanisms can be implemented, in particular, through changes in national legal acts related to combating violence. First of all, we are talking about the Law of Ukraine of January 4, 2018 “On Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence”. For the comprehensive and productive fulfillment of Ukraine’s obligations, it is worth focusing on certain gaps that, in our opinion, exist in the relevant law, namely: identification of gender-based violence and introduction of the concept of “gender” in procedural acts to overcome the so-called “gender blindness” and the conflict of variability of domestic violence and the degree of responsibility for each of its types in terms of recognizing the systematic nature of acts.