Impact:

With UNICEF support, four local administrations in western Ukraine have established Child Advisory Councils to advise the local government on issues concerning children and youth.

With assistance from UNICEF, six cities are working towards the introduction of the Child Friendly City governance model.

UNICEF has supported the creation of the All Ukrainian Coalition ‘Unite for Children’. The organisation is now an active player in the promotion of child rights in Ukraine and includes 50 non-governmental organisations working to promote child rights.

Hiv/aids, Children and Youth Programme

Issue:

Ukraine is the country worst affected by HIV/AIDS in Europe. An estimated 440,000 people aged 15-49 are living with HIV/AIDS – 1.63 per cent of the adult population. Three regions – Kyiv, Odessa and Donetsk – have recently crossed the threshold of one per cent HIV infection among pregnant women, indicating the increasing generalization of the epidemic.

Injecting drug use is still driving the spread of HIV but the disease is now spreading fast among the broader young population through unprotected sex and from mothers to their babies. Eighty per cent of all infected people are young. The recent sharp increase in infections outside vulnerable groups and in young women in particular suggests that the coming years will be decisive for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine.

The analysis of data for most at risk adolescents (MARA) aged 10 to 19, based on data of the behavioural surveillance studies among most at risk populations (IDUs, MSM and FSWs), shows that MARA represent a population group in need of special attention within the frame of the national AIDS response. Risk behaviour among this group starts very early, overlapping risk behaviours are common, while HIV/AIDS knowledge, skills and particularly access to adequate HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services is extremely low – much lower than among their adult counterparts, as this population group faces a wide range of access barriers. Many of the existing prevention and harm reduction services are not targeting MARA, e.g. the national estimate for the access of children living or working on the streets to HIV services is less than 1 per cent .

Current trends of the HIV epidemic prove that more emphasis should be placed on prevention among most at risk adolescents, youth, children born to HIV-positive mothers survival, care providers capacity building and increasing of quality of existing system of treatment, care and support for those who already affected by HIV/AIDS.

Action: Protecting children and women from HIV/AIDS

UNICEF is assisting the government to address the threat of a full-blown outbreak of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine while at the same time protecting the rights of those infected by:

• Working with government partners to strengthen the national policy response to the epidemic so that the rights of the children and women living with HIV will be respected.

• Supporting the development of youth-friendly health services throughout the country and by introducing a system that will monitor the quality and accessibility of services.

• Helping the government and civil society to create a knowledge base of socially disadvantaged and therefore especially vulnerable adolescents, and create services that will prevent them from engaging in high-risk behaviour.

• Providing children and youth both in and out of school with the life skills they need to protect themselves from HIV infection.

• Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV by strengthening the capacity of health care facilities to provide preventive measures, including voluntary testing and counselling for pregnant women as well as antiretroviral treatment for those who are HIV-positive.

• Advocating for the provision of antiretroviral therapy for women and children.