Last week, the Verkhova Rada of Ukraine adopted a law that protects children from sexual abuse and exploitation: Law 3055. After a record-breaking year of online child sexual abuse reports – in which 21.7 million reports of such material were reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children alone – such an adoption is critical to children’s safety.
Prior to this new law, only production and distribution of child sexual abuse materials was criminalized – but today, penalties have been expanded to viewing and storing such materials as well. Law 3055 makes viewing and storing these materials punishable by prison for three months to three years. It also raises the punishment for cyber grooming to imprisonment for two to five years.
These changes will reduce the level of sexual abuse and exploitation of children in Ukraine, and at the same time, make the country safer for future generations.
Law 3055, On amendments to some laws of Ukraine regarding the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention), also proposed a provision that meets committing sexual acts with children with imprisonment charges of up to five years.
“We want to thank everyone in Ukraine who worked on the Law and put forward efforts for this important day,” said Dzyakava.
Photo: UNICEF/UNI321764/Filippov
