On April 4-5, 2019 UHHRU training “Building communities capacities in human rights protection” was conducted for the lawyers of UHHRU network of public reception offices and the network of partner organizations, working in the area of protection of human rights of people living with HIV and vulnerable population in the context of counteracting the challenges of HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The training was aimed at the development of participants’ skills and capacities in protection of human rights of PLHIV and vulnerable groups of population in the context of counteracting the challenges of HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Tasks of the training:

• Familiarize the participants with the specifics of protection of the PL HIV and vulnerable groups of population, mechanisms of access to ART and SMT in the context of HIV/AIDS spread;
• Provide knowledge on national legislation regulating human rights of people, which suffered from HIV/AIDS epidemic and which are under the risk of getting infected with HIV;
• Familiarize the participants with the national court practice and European Court practice on the cases of violation of rights of PL HIV and vulnerable groups of population;
• Elaborate the forms of cooperation with governmental and non-governmental organizations in the system of complex support provision to affected persons.

The following trainers and experts participated in the training:

Oleksandr Pavlichenko – Executive Director of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, expert

Aigul Mukanova – coordinator of the regional legal aid network on HIV/AIDS issues, expert

Natalia Kozarenko – Deputy Head of the UHHRU Legal Aid Department, coordinator of the UHHRU network of public reception offices

Oleh Nesinov – advocate, expert on human rights protection of HIV positive persons and drug addicts.

Among other important topics the following were discussed:

National court practice in the healthcare issues. Refusal in providing medical assistance, insufficient medical assistance or medical malpractice (A. Mukanova)

Strategic litigations on PL HIV human rights protection. Application of the rule 39 of the Rules of the Court (A. Mukanova).

Concept of information confidentiality. Disclosure of information about HIV status, drag addiction, sexual orientation, proving, evaluation of non-pecuniary and material damage. Relevant national legislation and practice. (O. Pavlichenko)

Access to information about the patient (access to own information), means of vulnerable information protection. (O. Pavlichenko)

Pretrial measures for protecting human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and TB. Applications to the Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. (O. Pavlichenko)

Interaction with social services, HIV/AIDS Centers, drug abuse centers and TB hospitals. HIV service organizations, communities. Establishing ongoing communication, redirection, cooperation experience, exchange of experience (N. Kozarenko).

Feedback of the training participant, UHHRU Lawyer, Sergiy Movchan:

“Very interesting and informative training! I liked the quality of the training, presentation of the training topics, skills of the trainers in establishing the contact, participants received huge amount of extremely useful information. However, it would be good if more attention was devoted to the practical component, as nearly all participants are working in this sphere for some time already.”