A/HRC/44/53/Add.1 and Odessa. Armed groups supported by the Russian Federation seized power in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, leading to a so-called referendum on 16 March 2014 and the temporary occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol by the Russian Federation. 1 In parallel, in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian armed groups seized control of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and declared the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic”, sparking an armed conflict that has so far affected 5.2 million people 2 and led to over 1.5 million persons being internally displaced. Since the start of the conflict, 3,046 conflict-related civilian deaths have been recorded and the number of injured civilians is estimated to exceed 7,000.3 7. In July 2017, Ukraine signed an association agreement with the European Union. In April 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky won the second round of the presidential election, and in July 2019 the Servant of the People party won a majority in parliament. III. Legal, institutional and public policy framework A. Legal framework 8. Ukraine is a State party to most major international 4 and regional human rights instruments,5 and it has created solid institutional frameworks for the implementation of its international obligations. Ukraine decriminalized same-sex sexual practices in 1992. 6 Sexual orientation and gender identity are not included as explicitly protected grounds of discrimination in the Constitution (art. 24) or the law “on principles of preventing and combating discrimination”. However, both instruments use open-ended lists of grounds, thus allowing for protection through judicial interpretation. 9. Sexual orientation and gender identity have been articulated explicitly as grounds for protection in two pieces of legislation: the Labour Code (art. 21) and the law on the legal status of missing persons (art. 7). In addition, these grounds have been introduced in some secondary legislation and State policies. Several articles of the Criminal Code were amended in December 20177 to become more inclusive to same-sex couples and to remove imprecise wording. 10. While the Independent Expert was informed of a gradual improvement in perceptions about the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse persons, in more recent times a regressive trend has been identified: for example, in parliament it has become impossible to discuss gender-related issues, with parliamentary factions openly combating women’s rights, gender equality and the protection of sexual minorities, and systematically trying to deconstruct existing legal infrastructure protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse persons from discrimination, or to introduce discriminatory legislation. According to these narratives, the term gender is ideologically 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 In its resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the General Assembly explicitly rejected the idea that the so-called referendum had legal force. Four other resolutions (71/205, 72/190, 73/263 and 74/168) relate to the situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Ukraine situation report”, 4 November 2019. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ukraine, country fact sheet, December 2019; and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine”, 16 August to 15 November 2019. See https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx (search “Ukraine”). See https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/search-on-states/-/conventions/treaty/search/states_coe (search “Ukraine”). Under article 121 (1) of the Criminal Code of the Soviet Union of 1934, transposed into the penal codes of all Soviet republics, male homosexuality was criminalized with a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment. See https://base.spinform.ru/show_doc.fwx?rgn=103505# (in Russian). 3