User:X0730420210/LGBT rights in Ukraine

Discrimination protections and hate crime laws
After having failed to gain enough votes on 5 and 9 November 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an amendment to the Labor Code banning sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination at work on 12 November 2015. A similar law (that law would have barred employers from rejecting workers based on their sexual orientation) was indefinitely postponed on 14 May 2013. The law passed on 12 November 2015 was an EU requirement for Ukraine to move forward in its application for visa-free travel to the Schengen Area. Before the vote of the bill, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Groysman strongly spoke out against same-sex marriage.

The Criminal Code of Ukraine contains a number of articles that provide for harsher penalties for crimes committed on the grounds of racial, national, or religious intolerance. Thus, although the concept of “hate crime” is currently absent in Ukrainian legislation, in practice, such a category of crimes is recognized, but only for the three above-mentioned motives. However, if a crime stems from intolerance towards an individual’s or group’s sexual orientation or gender identity, existing legislation does not stipulate heightened punishment, thus failing to classify it as a “hate crime.” In April 2020, a parliamentary draft aimed at amending the Ukrainian Criminal Code to address hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity was introduced. However, in September 2020, the draft was withdrawn from consideration following the Committee on Law Enforcement’s conclusion, citing the absence of terms such as “gender identity of a person,” “sexual orientation,” “intolerance towards gender identity,” and others within Ukrainian legislative texts.

In November 2016, the Ukrainian Parliament refused to back the Istanbul Convention, a European domestic violence treaty, because its references to sexual orientation and gender violated what many Ukrainian lawmakers said were basic Christian values. Ukrainian Council of Churches, too, opposed the ratification of the Istanbul convention citing “promotion of gender ideology,” which they claimed was threatening to the younger generations’ since it could “distort their sexual identity, popularize the same-sex relations, and spread gender dysphoria.” The Council of Churches did not change their opinion on the Istanbul Convention following the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, and argued against its ratification, advocating for “alternative ways of combating domestic violence and violence against women.” Despite the opposition from religious groups, eleven years after signing the Istanbul Convention, Ukrainian Parliament voted to ratify the Convention in response to the surge of reports of violence against women since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression. It is also worth noting that adoption of the Treaty coincided with Ukraine’s EU membership bid, with some EU members indicating that ratifying the convention is a precondition for approving Ukraine’s candidacy status.

In December 2022, the Ukrainian Parliament unanimously passed a bill that banned hate speech and discrimination against LGBT people in mass media. The provision was included in the media regulation bill, which was one of the main requirements for approval of Ukraine’s EU candidacy status. The bill aimed to align Ukrainian legislation with the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Directive (EU) 2018/1808).