A/HRC/42/40/Add.2 51. The Working Group also received reports by a significant number of individuals about the existence of unofficial places of deprivation of liberty, especially at the beginning of the conflict, including that managed by the SBU in Kharkiv between 2014 and 2016. It received credible and detailed descriptions of SBU Kharkiv as a major clandestine detention centre for conflict-related detainees from across Ukraine, who were transferred there to be tortured while being held incommunicado in a context that met the elements of the crime of enforced disappearance. The allegations of torture in the facility included suffocation with a gas mask, the dislocation of joints, the administration of electric shock, and mock executions. Detainees also received death threats and threats of a sexual nature against themselves and members of their families, and were denied access to medical care. Torture would usually continue until the detainee signed a self-incriminating statement. 11 This facility was later allegedly refurbished to alter the former cells to cover up the crimes committed there. 52. The authorities have either denied this or indicated that the investigation could not verify until now the existence of such a place. There were also several allegations of individuals being held in other unofficial detention facilities, including in Kramatorsk, Mariupol, Odessa and Pokrovsk. Consistent allegations of torture and other forms of illtreatment in these places were also received. All these allegations should be promptly and independently investigated. 53. The Working Group emphasizes that, in accordance with article 10 (1) and (2) of the Declaration, any person deprived of liberty should be held in an officially recognized place of detention and, in conformity with national law, be brought before a judicial authority promptly after detention. Accurate information on the detention of such persons and their place or places of detention, including transfers, should be made promptly available to their family members and lawyer. 54. The lack of accountability for these crimes also depends on the difficult access to justice for victims. While noting the Government’s efforts to create a system of free legal aid,12 the system does not appear to be effective and functioning for victims of enforced disappearance. 4. Reparation 55. All victims of enforced disappearance have the right to full reparation, which includes compensation, satisfaction, restitution, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition, as provided for in article 19 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. 56. The Working Group received testimonies regarding the difficult economic situation that relatives of disappeared persons experience. Particularly, it noted how mothers, wives and children were left in economic hardship with little or no support. At the same time, the Working Group did not come across any case in which the relatives of a disappeared person had been compensated or been provided with any psychological, social, medical or other assistance from the State. There is an urgent need to develop a national reparations policy that takes account of the specific needs of women and children. 57. While the Working Group notes that the newly adopted Law on the Legal Status of the Missing Persons provides for relatives of missing persons the right to receive a “survivor’s pension” one month after the registration of a person as disappeared, it regrets that, while children receive the pension irrespective of whether they were dependents of the disappeared, the parents and spouse only receive it if they have lost their livelihood because of the disappearance, which consequently adds a burden to prove it. Furthermore, the pension 11 12 12 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on the human rights situation in Ukraine from 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018, para. 65. The Government informed the Working Group that Ukraine had developed a system of free legal aid consisting of 550 access points (23 regional centres, 96 local centres and 433 legal aid bureaux), with 3,000 lawyers involved, 500,000 telephone consultations performed and clients represented in 270,000 criminal cases and 180,000 civil cases. It also indicated that the Ministry of Justice had implemented the all-Ukrainian legal awareness project “I Have a Right!” as a huge legal awarenessraising campaign to provide access to justice for everyone.