On 9 May 2023, the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of the Faculty of Law organised a meeting for 2-3 year students and lecturers with PhD in Law, Vice President of La Strada Ukraine Marina Lehenka.
Ms Marina held an online webinar on "Sexual Violence as a Method of Warfare", in which she explained the concepts of "gender-based violence" and "war crimes" in accordance with the Istanbul Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Analysing the mechanisms of recording the facts of such criminal offences among the civilian population by Ukrainian specialists, Marina identified the peculiarities of their investigation. She also described the mechanism of compensation for victims of violence through the procedure of state reparations, spoke about Ukraine's experience in providing assistance to victims, statistics on the gender distribution of victims in Kyiv and Kherson regions, and provided statistics on solved criminal offences.
The participants were interested in clarifying the provisions of Ukrainian legislation, which does not contain the concept of "war-related sexual violence". According to the speaker, the urgent issue today is to bring Ukraine's legislation in line with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, create a mechanism for paying compensation, and organise a psychological service to help victims and rehabilitate them. It is noted that the Office of the Prosecutor General is actively working in this area and a chatbot has already been set up to ensure the anonymity of victims' statements.
The use of such educational methods in the educational process and the involvement of leading experts to communicate with students helps to develop the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical skills, and to form professional competences of future lawyers in the course of their professional training.