human rights In April 2014, at the invitation of the Government of Ukraine and in response to developments in the country, the UN Secretary-General deployed a human rights monitoring team. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) monitors, documents, analyses and reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine. As the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine escalated, the HRMMU has additionally engaged in protection, advocacy and capacity building throughout the country, including in areas directly affected by the conflict. By October 2015, the HRMMU had published eleven public reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine. These document key trends across a broad range of human rights concerns including: arbitrary detention, summary executions, torture, conflict related sexual violence, freedom of movement, access to health and education, fair trial and due process, as well as issues related to freedom of peaceful assembly, association and expression. The HRMMU recommends measures to promote accountability and increase human rights protection. Since the escalation of the armed conflict, protection of civilians in the armed conflict has become a critical concern. The HRMMU undertakes a range of activities to minimize the impact of the armed conflict on civilians, including civilian casualty recording; advocacy efforts to strengthen protection of civilians affected by the armed conflict; and initiatives to promote respect for both international humanitarian and human rights law among all parties to the conflict, as well as accountability for violations. The HRMMU works to ensure that human rights protection is integrated into the humanitarian response, partly through its co-leadership of the Protection Cluster.
Staff member of the UN Human Rights mission talks to a woman whose house was destroyed by shelling in Donetsk region.
The HRMMU advises and assists the Government on the implementation of recommendations from the UN human rights mechanisms, as well as those made through its reports. It co-chairs the inter-agency task force on human rights, which as an initial task coordinated the UN support for the development of a national strategy on human rights (2015-2020), to be further outlined in a human rights action plan. Through partnership with a variety of partners, the HRMMU pursues a strategy to promote ‘human rights everywhere for everyone all the time’.