A local occupation authority installed by the Russian government and led by Sergey Aksyonov as “prime minister” of the “state council of the republic of Crimea” administers occupied Crimea. The “state council” is responsible for day-to-day administration and other functions of governing. In 2016 Russia’s nationwide parliamentary elections included seats allocated for purportedly annexed Crimea, a move widely condemned by the international community and that contravened the Ukrainian constitution.

Russian government agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Investigative Committee, and the Office of the Prosecutor General applied and enforced Russian law in Crimea as if it were a part of the Russian Federation. The FSB also conducted security, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism activities and combatted organized crime and corruption. A “national police force” operated under the aegis of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Russian authorities maintained control over Russian military and security forces deployed in Crimea.

Significant human rights issues included: disappearances; torture, including punitive psychiatric incarceration; mistreatment of persons in detention as punishment or to extort confessions; harsh prison conditions and transfer of prisoners to Russia; arbitrary arrest and detention; political prisoners; pervasive and arbitrary interference with privacy; severe restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence against journalists and website blocking; gross and widespread suppression of freedom of assembly and religion; severe restriction of freedom of association, including barring the Crimean Tatar Mejlis; significant restrictions on freedom of movement; restrictions on political participation; systemic corruption; and violence and systemic discrimination against Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians.

Occupation authorities took few steps to investigate or prosecute officials or individuals who committed human rights abuses, creating an atmosphere of impunity and lawlessness.

Children

Birth Registration: Under both Ukrainian law and laws imposed by Russian occupation authorities, either birthplace or parentage determines citizenship. Russia’s occupation and purported annexation of Crimea complicated the question of citizenship for children born after February 2014, since it was difficult for parents to register a child as a citizen with Ukrainian authorities. Registration in the country requires a hospital certificate, which is retained when a birth certificate is issued. Under the occupation regime, new parents could only obtain a Russian birth certificate and did not have access to a hospital certificate. In 2016 the Ukrainian government instituted a process whereby births in Crimea could be recognized with documents issued by occupation authorities.

Institutionalized Children: There were reports occupation authorities continued to permit kidnapping of orphans in Crimea and transporting them across the border into Russia for adoption. Ukraine’s government did not know the whereabouts of the children.

According to Jewish groups, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Jews lived in Crimea, primarily in Simferopol. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

Since the beginning of the occupation, authorities singled out Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians for discrimination, abuse, deprivation of civil liberties and religious and economic rights, and violence, including killings and abductions (also see sections 1.a.-1.d., 1.f., 2.a., 2.b., and 2.d.). The August UN secretary-general’s special report noted a “narrowing of space for manifestations of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identities and enjoyment of the respective cultures in Crimea. The restrictions have reportedly been closely connected to the suppression of political dissent and alternative political opinion.”

There were reports that government officials openly advocated discrimination against Crimean Tatars. Occupation authorities harassed Crimean Tatars for speaking their language in public and forbade speaking it in the workplace. There were reports teachers prohibited schoolchildren from speaking Crimean Tatar to one another. Crimean Tatars were prohibited from celebrating their national holidays and commemorating victims of previous abuses. For example, on June 26, occupation authorities denied a request by the residents of the town of Oktyabrske to hold a car rally for Crimean Tatar Flag Day. Police arrived at the gathering, informed them the event was unauthorized, and video-recorded those present. According to press reports, as the cars proceeded anyway, they were pulled over four times by police for “document checks.”

Occupation authorities also restricted the use of Crimean Tatar flags and symbols (see section 2.a.).

By the end of 2014, Ukrainian as a language of instruction was removed from university-level education in Crimea. According to the HRMMU, in the 2017-2018 academic year no school provided instruction in Ukrainian, and there were eight available Ukrainian language classes in Russian schools that were attended by 318 children. In 2017 the International Court of Justice ruled on provisional measures in proceedings brought by Ukraine against the Russian Federation, concluding unanimously that the Russian Federation must “ensure the availability of education in the Ukrainian language.”

Occupation authorities have not permitted churches linked to ethnic Ukrainians, in particular the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, to register under Russian law. Occupation authorities harassed and intimidated members of the churches and used court proceedings to force the OCU in particular to leave properties it had rented for years. The largest OCU congregation in Crimea closed on September 23 following a ruling by occupation authorities that the cathedral located in Simferopol must be “returned to the state.” The church was shut down after repeated refusals by the authorities to allow it to register.

Occupation authorities allegedly selectively seized property belonging to ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. According to the August UN secretary-general’s special report, during the year the HRMMU “received information about numerous cases of allocation of land plots to formerly displaced persons in Crimea, including Crimean Tatars, free of charge, as part of plans to legalize the unauthorized appropriation of land or allocation of alternative land plots.”

Russian occupation authorities prohibited Crimean Tatars affiliated with the Mejlis from registering businesses or properties as a matter of policy.

Human rights groups and local LGBTI activists reported that most LGBTI individuals fled Crimea after the Russian occupation began. Those who remained lived in fear of abuse due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to the HRMMU, NGOs working on access to health care among vulnerable groups have found it impossible to advocate for better access to healthcare for LGBTI persons due to fear of retaliation by occupation authorities.

Occupation authorities prohibited any LGBTI group from holding public events in Crimea. According to the HRMMU, LGBTI residents of Crimea faced difficulties in finding a safe environment for gatherings because of occupation authorities’ encouragement of an overall hostile attitude towards the manifestation of LGBTI identity. LGBTI individuals faced increasing restrictions on their right to free expression and assembly peacefully, because occupation authorities enforced a Russian law that criminalizes the so-called propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors (see section 6 of the Country Reports on Human Rights for Russia). For example, on June 29, the organizers of the theater company Territoria apologized for producing a play that showed two women kissing during a state-sponsored theater festival. High-ranking members of the Russian government called for the company to be prosecuted under the Russian law that prohibits the “propaganda” of “nontraditional sexual relations” to minors.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law broadly defines violence against women as “any restriction denying women equality in the civil, political, economic, social, or cultural domains.” The 2018 law criminalizing gender-based violence adds or updates articles in the penal code to meet international best practices. It criminalizes incest, sexual harassment of women in public places, and gender discrimination.

Laws prohibiting domestic violence provide penalties for assault committed by a spouse or family member that are double those of an unrelated individual for the same crime, but enforcement was rare, and domestic violence remained a serious problem. The law provides penalties for domestic violence and allows women to seek restraining orders against their abusers without filing a criminal case or filing for divorce. The Ministry of Women, Family, Childhood and Senior Citizens established a national hotline for victims of violence. There were five centers dedicated to providing assistance to female victims of violence, one managed by the ministry and four by civil society organizations.

On May 22, Minister of Women, Family, Childhood, and Senior Citizens (MWFCS) Neziha Laabidi said that authorities annually receive an average of 40,000 complaints of domestic violence brought by women against their husbands. Civil society representatives said many incidents go unreported.

Rape remained a taboo subject, and cultural pressures often dissuaded victims from reporting sexual assault. There were no government public education programs on domestic violence, including rape. Victims received services at two dozen social centers throughout the country, in addition to the five centers dedicated to victims of gender-based violence.

On June 10, the First Instance Court of Tunis sentenced five individuals to life in prison for raping a 27-year-old woman. During the trial the defendants confessed to their crime, which took place in 2017 in the governorate of Manouba.

Sexual Harassment: The 2018 gender-based violence law includes a revised article related to sexual harassment. It allows up to a two-year sentence for the harasser and a 5,000-dinar ($1,740) fine, instead of the previous one year in prison. The law further clarifies that sexual harassment can include any act, gesture, or words with sexual connotation. The punishment is doubled if the victim is a child or the perpetrator has authority over the victim.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The constitution and law explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, or social status, and the government generally enforced these prohibitions. Women faced societal rather than statutory barriers to their economic and political participation. Codified civil law is based on the Napoleonic code, although on occasion, judges drew upon interpretations of sharia (Islamic law) as a basis for customary law in family and inheritance disputes.

Newly married couples must state explicitly in the marriage contract whether they elect to combine their possessions or to keep them separate. Sharia inheritance law in some instances provides men with a larger share of an inheritance. Some families avoided the application of sharia by executing sales contracts between parents and children to ensure that daughters received shares of property equal to those given sons. Non-Muslim women and their Muslim husbands may not inherit from each other, unless they seek a legal judgement based on the rights enshrined in the constitution. The government considers all children of those marriages to be Muslim and forbids those children from inheriting from their mothers. Spouses may, however, freely give up to one-third of their estate to whomever they designate in their will.

The law explicitly requires equal pay for equal work, and the government generally enforced it. The law allows female employees in the public sector to receive two-thirds of their full-time salary for half-time work, provided they have at least one child younger than age 16 or a child with special needs, regardless of age. Qualifying women may apply for the benefit for a three-year period, renewable twice for a maximum of nine years. Societal and cultural barriers significantly reduced women’s participation in the formal labor force, particularly in managerial positions. Women in the private sector earned on average one-quarter less than men for similar work. The 2018 law on gender-based violence contains provisions aimed at eliminating the gender-based wage gap.

Children

Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived by birth from one’s parents, and the law provides for a period of 10 days to register a newborn. Thereafter, parents have 30 days to explain why they failed to register a newborn and complete the registration. Female citizens can transmit citizenship on an equal basis with male citizens, and there is no discrimination between a mother and father regarding passport application and authorization to leave the country.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum age for marriage for both sexes is 18, but the courts may, in certain situations, authorize the marriage of persons younger than 18 upon the request and approval of both parents.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: Anyone who has sexual relations with a child younger than age 16 is subject to 20 years in prison with the possibility for a life sentence due aggravating circumstances, including incest or the use of violence. Under previous laws, intercourse with a girl younger than 15 without the use of violence was punishable by six years in prison; the 2018 law raised the age of consent to 16, and removed a clause in the legal code that allowed the court to drop the charges of sex with a minor if the perpetrator agreed to marry the victim, with the approval of her parents. The law prohibits child pornography. UNICEF reported that one in four children live in poverty and that 88 percent of children ages one to 14 are subjected to physical, verb, or psychological violence in their homes and at school. The MWFCS reported to media on October 17 that during the year it received approximately 17,000 notifications related to child abuse cases, which the ministry attributed to “growing awareness among citizens about the need to denounce perpetrators of violence.”

On January 31, authorities closed an unlicensed, privately run Quranic school in Regueb, Sidi Bouzid Governorate and arrested its director and administrators on charges of human trafficking, polygamy, and suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization. Authorities reported many of the children were mistreated and were the victims of economic and sexual abuse. On the same day as the closure, the public prosecutor initiated an investigation into the allegations of child exploitation, and a family judge ordered the transfer of the children to a state-run center in Tunis specializing in caring for children who were victims of abuse. In July the court sentenced one adult male who was affiliated with the school to 20 years in prison on charges of child sexual abuse.

On March 12, the MWFCS reported that a teacher in Sfax was accused of sexually abusing 20 elementary school students. The ministry announced it would provide the children with psychological support. Subsequent to these allegations, the Ministry of Education indicated the initial investigation revealed that these crimes took place outside of the school and that, as a result, the ministry would suspend any teacher providing private classes outside of the educational framework. Media later reported that authorities issued an arrest warrant against the teacher, although as of September there were no updates to the investigation.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

An estimated 1,400 Jews lived in the country. In September the Aleph Institute, an international Jewish organization that assists individuals in prisons, expressed concern about possible anti-Semitic treatment of two Jewish detainees. In one case, the Aleph Institute reported Ilane Racchah has been detained since July 2018 without a trial and that the investigative judge on his case posted to social media comments that appear anti-Semitic. Although prison officials allowed his family to bring him kosher meals, the normal visiting hours precluded the family from visiting Racchah on Sabbath or Jewish holidays and prevented the family from bringing him Jewish religious materials.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Since 1991 the law requires all new public buildings to be accessible to persons with physical disabilities, and the government generally enforced the law. Persons with physical disabilities did not have access to most buildings built before 1991. The government did not ensure information and communications were accessible for persons with disabilities.

The Ministry of Social Affairs is charged with protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. The government issued cards to persons with disabilities for benefits such as unrestricted parking, free and priority medical services, free and preferential seating on public transportation, and consumer discounts. In general public buses and trains are ill suited and not easily accessible to persons with disabilities. As of July 1, for the first time, authorities permitted persons with disabilities to obtain a driver’s license from their area of residence rather than the capital.

The government provided tax incentives to companies to encourage the hiring of persons with physical disabilities. There were approximately 300 government-administered schools for children with disabilities, at least five schools for blind pupils, one higher-education school, and one vocational training institution. The Ministry of Social Affairs managed centers that provided short- and long-term accommodation and medical services to persons with disabilities who lacked other means of support. On July 29, the ministry announced it would hire 226 persons with disabilities to work in the public sector.

The Ibsar Association, which works to promote rights for all persons with disabilities, estimated that fewer than one-third of persons with disabilities hold a government-issued disability card, which entitles the holder to a monthly government stipend of 120 dinars ($41.70).

One of the biggest challenges for persons with disabilities, according to Ibsar, was a lack of access to information through education, media, or government agencies. There were very limited education options or public-sector accommodations for persons with hearing or visual disabilities. There were no schools for children with hearing disabilities, and Ibsar estimated that more than 90 percent of persons with hearing disabilities were illiterate. For children with physical disabilities, infrastructure continued be a major hurdle to their social inclusion, as few buildings or cities are accessible to persons with physical disabilities or reduced mobility.

For the national elections, ISIE worked with civil society organizations to prepare electoral handbooks in braille and to develop elections-related materials in sign language, including a mobile application that standardizes signed vocabulary and phrases related to elections. Civil society observer groups noted ISIE increased its efforts to ensure accessibility to persons with disabilities but that there continued to be a need for effective, timely voter education programs targeted at persons with disabilities and their families.

In October 2018 parliament adopted a law against all forms of racial discrimination, including “all distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, origin, heritage, or all other forms of racial obstruction, obstacle, or deprivation of rights and liberties or their exercise.” The law penalizes acts of racial discrimination with up to three years in prison and a 1,000-to 3,000-dinar ($347 to $1,040) fine for an individual and a 5,000- to 15,000-dinar ($1,740 to $5,220) fine for a legal entity.

On February 5, a court in Sfax sentenced a woman to a three-month suspended prison sentence and a 300-dinar ($104) fine for using racial slurs to insult her daughter’s black teacher. The court added an additional two-month suspended prison sentence and a 100-dinar ($35) fine for insulting a public official exercising his official duties. This was the first court sentence issued under the law criminalizing racial discrimination.

In December 2018 Falikou Coulibaly, president of the Association of Ivoirians in Tunisia, was killed during a robbery in a suburb of Tunis. Hundreds of Ivorian nationals demonstrated in Tunis to protest Coulibaly’s murder in what they characterized as a racist attack. Then minister in charge of relations with constitutional bodies, civil society, and human rights Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh told media, “It is not clear yet if this is a racist criminal act, but an investigation is ongoing. We are against any act of racism.”

The law criminalizes sodomy. Convictions carry up to a three-year prison sentence. According to NGOs, authorities occasionally used the law against sodomy to detain and question persons about their sexual activities and sexual orientation, reportedly at times based on appearance alone. In some instances NGOs reported that LGBTI individuals were targeted under the article of the penal code that criminalizes “infringement of morality or public morals,” which carries a penalty of six months in prison and a fine of 1,000 dinars ($347).

LGBTI individuals continued to face discrimination and violence, including death and rape threats, although societal stigma and fear of prosecution under sodomy laws discouraged individuals from reporting problems. On July 18, the First Instance Court of Sousse sentenced two young men to 18 months in prison each under Article 230 of the 1913 Penal Code that criminalizes same-sex relations. According to Shams Association, one of the accused reported being the victim of sexual harassment while in detention due to his sexual orientation.

Human rights organizations and LGBTI-focused NGOs stated that judges continued to sentence individuals to jail under the sodomy law, and since judges often assumed guilt of individuals who refused to submit voluntarily to an exam, individuals felt coerced to submit to anal examinations. On May 17, a coalition of NGOs, the Civil Collective for Individual Liberties, called on the government to accelerate the establishment of the Constitutional Court as a guarantor of rights, decriminalize consensual same-sex conduct, end forced or coerced anal examinations, recognize the rights of transgender people, and end harassment of LGBTI-rights organizations. The collective noted, “despite the commitment by Tunisian authorities since 2017 not to resort to the use of anal examinations, courts continue to order this practice.”

No laws restrict freedom of expression, association, or peaceful assembly for those speaking out about LGBTI issues. Nevertheless, in February the government appealed a 2016 court ruling overturning the government’s complaint that the Shams Association’s charter did not allow it to explicitly advocate for gay rights. Adding to its 2016 case, the government stated, “the Tunisian society rejects homosexuality culturally and legally,” and that the Shams Association violated Article 3 of Decree Law 3 “by conducting activities that contradict Tunisia’s laws and culture.” On May 17, the Tunis Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Shams Association, noting that Shams did not violate the law by advocating for LGBTI rights.

During the year a small number of politicians offered support for increased rights for members of the LGBTI community. In October 2018, 10 Members of Parliament submitted a draft bill proposing decriminalization of homosexuality, recognition of gender identity, and penalization of homophobia. In a February 11 media interview, Nahda Party leader Lotfi Zitoun condemned the continued use of anal examinations as a violation of human rights and individual dignity. On April 3, the president of the Machrou Tounes party, Mohsen Marzouk, met representatives from the Shams Association and publicly expressed his support for LGBTI rights.

There continued to be no information on official discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing, access to education, or health care.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The government and independent monitoring groups reported with concern that violence against women, particularly femicides, increased, compared with 2018. The law criminalizes violence against women and sexual assault, including rape and spousal rape, with penalties of two to 10 years’ imprisonment for conviction of attempted sexual violation and at least 12 years’ imprisonment for conviction of rape or sexual violation. The government did not effectively or fully enforce these laws or protect victims. For example, in May human rights lawyer Muzeyyen Boylu Issi was shot and killed by her husband in front of their children, after having survived two previous attempts on her life and filing for divorce and a protection order. As of November the husband, Mesut Issi, was in prison pending trial. If convicted of murder, he could face additional charges of aggravated life imprisonment.

The law covers all women and requires police and local authorities to grant various levels of protection and support services to survivors of violence or those at risk of violence. It also mandates government services, such as shelter and temporary financial support, for victims and provides for family courts to impose sanctions on perpetrators.

The law provides for the establishment of violence-prevention and monitoring centers to offer economic, psychological, legal, and social assistance. There were 81 violence prevention centers throughout the country, one in each province. There were 144 women’s shelters nationwide, providing shelter to approximately 30,000 women. Women’s rights advocates asserted there were not enough shelters to meet the demand for assistance and that shelter staff did not provide adequate care and services, particularly in the southeast. Some NGOs noted shelters in multiple southeastern provinces closed during the state of emergency and that others faced difficulty following the removal of elected mayors and appointment of government trustees, some of whom cut funding and ended partnerships with the local NGOs. Some NGOs noted the lack of services was more acute for elderly women and LGBTI women as well as women with older children. The government operated a nationwide domestic violence hotline and web application called the Women Emergency Assistance Notification System (KADES). NGOs asserted the quality of services provided in calls was inadequate for victims of domestic violence. According to press reports, 13,000 women had used the KADES app to report violence as of September.

Violence against women, including spousal abuse, remained a serious and widespread problem both in rural and urban areas. Spousal rape is a criminal offense, and the law also provides criminal penalties for conviction of crimes such as assault, deprivation of liberty, or threats. Despite these measures, killings and other forms of violence against women continued unabated. According to the We Will Stop Femicide Association, 430 women were murdered in the first 11 months of the year; 53 in September alone.

On August 24, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Istanbul and in other cities around the country to protest gender-based violence following the public killing of Emine Bulut by her former husband in front of their 10-year-old daughter. Social media users shared video of the attack, and the victim’s dying words, “olmek istemiyorum” (“I don’t want to die”), became a rallying cry for demonstrators and on social media. In October Bulut’s former husband was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Following the incident, women’s rights groups called for the enforcement of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, and leaders from across the political spectrum denounced that attack. Courts regularly issued restraining orders to protect victims, but human rights organizations reported that police rarely enforced them effectively. Women’s associations also charged that government counselors and police sometimes encouraged women to remain in abusive marriages at their own personal risk rather than break up families.

In October Ayse Tuba Arslan’s former husband attacked her with a meat cleaver. Arslan had pressed charges against her former husband 23 times; an Eskisehir court dismissed five of the 10 charges filed during the year. Police failed to enforce the court-issued restraining orders effectively. Arslan died of her wounds on November 25.

Courts in some cases gave reduced sentences to some men found guilty of committing violence against women, citing good behavior during the trial or “provocation” by women as an extenuating circumstance of the crime. For example, in August an Adana court reduced the sentence of Mehmet Ciftci from life imprisonment to 18 years’ imprisonment for good behavior. Ciftci was convicted of murdering his 19-year-old wife, who was four months pregnant at the time of her murder.

Other Harmful Traditional Practices: Human rights activists and academics reported the problematic practice of “honor killings” of women continued across the country (31 cases reported during the year). The prevalence of killings was most severe in the southeast.

Individuals convicted of honor killings may receive life imprisonment, but NGOs reported that courts often reduced actual sentences due to mitigating factors. The law allows judges, when establishing sentences, to take into account anger or passion caused by the “misbehavior” of the victim.

Sexual Harassment: The law provides for up to five years’ imprisonment for sexual harassment. If the victim is a child, the recommended punishments are longer; however, women’s rights activists reported that authorities rarely enforced these laws. For example, in February a police officer sexually harassed a university student being detained during a protest in Ankara. According to local media, despite the existence of photographic evidence, police attempted to cover up the incident, accused the victim of having ties to a terror organization, and detained and interrogated the journalist who interviewed the victim and her family.

Gender equality organizations indicated that incidents of verbal harassment and physical intimidation of women in public occurred with regularity and cited as the cause a permissive social environment in which harassers were emboldened. In one case, in September a woman physically attacked in Ankara reported that authorities tried to legitimize the attack by questioning her during her deposition about what she was wearing and whether the attack occurred late at night.

Some women’s rights NGOs asserted that weak legal enforcement of laws to protect women and light sentencing of violent perpetrators of crimes against women contributed to a climate of permissiveness for potential offenders. Women’s advocates expressed concern that laws passed in 2018 to encourage dispute resolution through mediation rather than the court system would reduce the severity of criminal punishment given perpetrators of violence against women, thereby reducing the deterrent effect of the law, undermining women’s safety, and potentially enabling impunity.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or forced sterilization.

Discrimination: Women enjoy the same rights as men by law, but societal and official discrimination were widespread. Women faced discrimination in employment.

The constitution permits measures, including positive discrimination, to advance gender equality. To encourage the hiring of women, the state paid social services insurance premiums on behalf of employers for several months for any female employee older than age 18. Laws introduced as a gender justice initiative provided for maternity leave, breastfeeding time during work hours, flexibility in work hours, and required child care by large employers. Rights organizations contended, however, that these changes in the legal framework discouraged employers from hiring women and negatively impacted their promotion potential.

Children

Birth Registration: There was universal birth registration, and births were generally registered promptly. A child receives citizenship from his or her parents, not through birth in the country. Only one parent needs to be a citizen to convey citizenship to a child. In special cases in which a child born in the country cannot receive citizenship from any other country due to the status of his or her parents, the child is legally entitled to receive citizenship.

Education: Human rights NGOs and others expressed concern that despite the law on compulsory education, some families were able to keep female students home. The Education Reform Initiative, an NGO focusing on education, reported in its Education Monitoring Report for 2017-18 that the government took important positive steps to expand girls’ access to education, including by providing conditional cash transfers to incentivize poor families to continue education for their daughters. According to education union Egitim Sen, based on 2018-19 reporting, the rate for schooling decreased to 91 percent and the rate for girls’ schooling decreased to 91 percent, compared with 99 percent in 2013-14. According to European Statistics Office data, drop-out rates in the country were 34 percent for girls and 31 percent for boys in 2017, an improving trend.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its Education at a Glance report, stated the number of young adults who attained a tertiary education had doubled in the last year, although it noted that nearly half of them did not complete upper secondary education.

Child Abuse: Child abuse was a problem. The law authorizes police and local officials to grant various levels of protection and support services to victims of violence or to those at risk of violence. Nevertheless, children’s rights advocates reported failed implementation. The law requires the government to provide services to victims, such as shelter and temporary financial support, and empowers family courts to impose sanctions on those responsible for the violence.

By law, if the victim of abuse is between the age of 12 and 18, molestation results in a three-to-eight-year prison sentence, sexual abuse in an eight-to-15-year sentence, and rape in a sentence of at least 16 years. If the victim is younger than 12, molestation results in a minimum five-year prison sentence, sexual abuse in a minimum 10-year sentence, and rape in a minimum 18-year sentence.

Government authorities increased attention on the problem of child abuse. According to Ministry of Justice statistics, imprisonment sentences for child sexual abuse in the country increased to 18,000 in 2018. Child rights experts reported that the increased attention on the problem had led to greater awareness and reporting. The women’s NGO We Will Stop Femicides reported that, in just the month of July 2018, there were 433 reported cases of child sexual abuse. According to Ministry of Justice statistics, there were 16,348 child sex abuse cases filed in 2017.

Early and Forced Marriage: The law defines 18 as the minimum age for marriage, although children may marry at 17 with parental permission and at 16 with court approval. The law acknowledges civil and religious marriages, but the latter were not always registered with the state.

NGOs reported children as young as 12 married in unofficial religious ceremonies, particularly in poor and rural regions and among the Syrian population living in the country. The government’s 2018 Demographic and Health Survey showed that 12 percent of Syrian girls in the country married before age 15 and 38 percent married before age 18. Early and forced marriage was particularly prevalent in the southeast, and women’s rights activists reported the problem remained serious. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, 26 percent of women in the country married before the age of 18, and 10 percent gave birth to their first child before the age of 18. Local NGOs worked to educate and raise awareness among the Turkish and Syrian population in major southeast provinces.

Separately, women’s rights groups stated that forced marriages and bride kidnapping persisted, particularly in rural areas, although it was not as widespread as in previous years.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The constitution requires the state to take measures to protect children from exploitation. The law criminalizes sexual exploitation of children and mandates a minimum sentence of eight years in prison. The penalty for conviction of encouraging or facilitating child prostitution is up to 10 years’ imprisonment; if violence or pressure is involved, a judge may double the sentence.

The age of consent for sex is 18. The law prohibits producing or disseminating child pornography and stipulates a prison sentence of up to two years as well as a fine for violations.

Incest involving children remained a problem, although prosecutions remained minimal. The law provides prison sentences of up to five years for incest.

Displaced Children: Many women’s and migrant rights NGOs reported that displaced children, mostly Syrian, remained vulnerable to economic and sexual abuse.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

According to the Chief Rabbinate in Istanbul, there were approximately 16,000 Jews living in the country. Some members of the community continued to emigrate or seek to obtain citizenship in a second country, in part due to concerns about anti-Semitism.

Jewish citizens expressed concern regarding anti-Semitism and security threats. On July 31, a video was posted on social media showing children at an apparent summer camp being led in chants calling for death to Jews. Leading individuals in the community denounced the video, which was viewed more than 400,000 times, and expressed concern at such forms of indoctrination and hatred at such a young age. HDP member of parliament Garo Paylan called for an investigation into the incident for possible prosecution under hate crimes statutes. On March 28, an unidentified attacker attempted to throw a Molotov cocktail at the Beth Israel Synagogue in Izmir. The synagogue was not damaged in the attack, and police apprehended and charged a suspect within a few days.

The premiere of the film Cicero generated controversy and condemnation when the scenery for the premiere’s red carpet walk depicted features of a concentration camp, including striped uniforms draped on barbed wire fencing and guard dogs. The local Jewish community, columnists, and AKP lawmakers denounced the display as disgraceful. The filmmakers subsequently apologized.

During the campaign for Istanbul mayor, altered images of opposition CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu showing him shaking hands with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and meeting with a group of Orthodox Jews appeared on social media in an effort to discredit him, according to commentators. Disparaging comments and statements calling Imamoglu a friend of Zionism accompanied the images.

In November an IYI party member of parliament made a remark on social media commenting on a government official’s family’s “excessive” display of wealth, posting, “There is a group of people that have become rich due to their undeserved income and live luxuriously, we call them Protestant Muslims.  These people have become Jews, mentally.”  The post received widespread criticism on social media.

In October social media users and media outlets shared photographs of anti-Christian and anti-Semitic posters hung at municipal bus stops in the central Anatolian town of Konya by the local branches of the Anatolian Youth Association and National Youth Foundation. The posters cited a Quranic verse that appeared to advise Muslims not to befriend Christians and Jews. The images also included a crucifix and Star of David with what appeared to be droplets of blood. Social media users from all three faiths criticized the posters as insulting to religious minorities, misrepresenting the message of the Quran, and undermining the dignity of the nation. The private advertising company leasing the billboards said the associations changed the content of the posters before printing them, and the company replaced the images with Turkish flags shortly after the concerns appeared on social media. The Anatolian Youth Association described the situation as a misunderstanding and indicated it was investigating the cause of the incident.

Anti-Semitic rhetoric continued in print media and on social media throughout the year. According to a Hrant Dink Foundation report on hate speech, as of August 31, there were 430 published instances of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the press depicting Jews as violent, conspiratorial, and enemies of the country. A reader’s letter published in Yeni Akit claimed Jewish residents in Istanbul trained street dogs to bite Muslims and repeated historic blood libel anti-Semitic tropes. Some commentators criticized the letter as ridiculous, and former AKP member of parliament Mustafa Yeneroglu denounced its content as “the language of the Nazis,” according to multiple media reports. In some instances officials and party representatives denounced stories with anti-Semitic content on social media.

The government took several positive steps to combat anti-Semitism. On January 24, Ankara University hosted an event to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which also issued a written statement marking the occasion. On February 21, the Istanbul governor’s office hosted a commemoration for the sinking of the Struma and the loss of nearly 800 Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in 1942. In April, September, and December, President Erdogan sent the Jewish community public messages celebrating Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Hanukkah, respectively, that highlighted religious diversity as part of “the country’s most important wealth that strengthens unity and solidarity.”

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, but NGOs that advocate for persons with disabilities asserted the government did not enforce the law effectively. In March the Association for Monitoring Equal Rights reported there were serious structural and institutional barriers with respect to access and justice for persons with disabilities, specifically citing accessibility problems as. barriers to voting and holding public office.

The law requires all governmental institutions and businesses to provide persons with disabilities access to public areas and public transportation and allows for the establishment of review commissions and fines for noncompliance. The government made little progress implementing the law, and access in many cities remained limited.

The Ministry of Labor, Social Services, and Family is responsible for protecting persons with disabilities. The ministry maintained social service centers assisting marginalized individuals, including persons with disabilities. The majority of children with disabilities were enrolled in mainstream public schools; others attended special education centers.

The law requires all public schools to accommodate students with disabilities, although activists reported instances of such students being refused admission or encouraged to drop out of school. According to disability activists, a large number of school-age children with disabilities did not receive adequate access to education. According to a June report by the Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Services, 353,610 students with disabilities were in school, with 257,770 studying in regular schools and the remainder in either state-run or privately owned special education schools or classes. There were more than 12,000 teachers working in special education schools. A Ministry of Labor, Social Services, and Family program allowed individuals with autism to stay in government-run houses and offered state resources to families who were unable to attend to all the needs of their autistic children.

In April the UN Committee on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities concluded that, while the country ratified the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and had achieved progress since the ratification in 2009, concerns persisted regarding the prevalence of medical, charitable, and paternalistic approaches to disability. The association called for greater awareness raising among the public concerning disability rights, establishing more robust complaint mechanisms for persons with disabilities, addressing physical accessibility issues, and responding to allegations of discrimination against the disabled.

On January 9, the government announced the addition of 3,200 citizens with disabilities to the public sector during the year, bringing the total employed in the public sector to 56,500. The private sector employed 124,000 of the two million citizens with disabilities qualified for work. An employment quota implemented in 2014 requires private-sector companies with more than 50 employees to include in its workforce at least 2 percent employees with disabilities. The public-sector requirement is 4 percent. There has been no reporting regarding the implementation of fines for accountability. President Erdogan declared 2020 the “year of accessibility,” with particular focus on mass transit and building entrances.

The constitution provides a single nationality designation for all citizens and does not expressly recognize national, racial, or ethnic minorities except for three non-Muslim minorities: Armenian Apostolic Christians, Jews, and Greek Orthodox Christians. Other national, religious, or ethnic minorities, including Assyrians, Jaferis, Yezidis, Kurds, Arabs, Roma, Circassians, and Laz, were not permitted to exercise their linguistic, religious, and cultural rights fully.

More than 15 million citizens were estimated to be of Kurdish origin and spoke Kurdish dialects. Security force efforts against the PKK disproportionately affected Kurdish communities in rural areas throughout much of the year. Some predominantly Kurdish communities experienced government-imposed curfews, generally in connection with government security operations aimed at clearing areas of PKK terrorists (see section 1.g.).

Kurdish and pro-Kurdish civil society organizations and political parties continued to experience problems exercising freedoms of assembly and association (see section 2.b.). Hundreds of Kurdish civil society organizations and Kurdish-language media outlets closed by government decree in 2016 and 2017 after the coup attempt remained shut. In October the International Crisis Group reported 4,686 persons, including state security personnel, PKK-affiliated militants, civilians, and individuals of unknown affiliation, had been killed in the conflict since mid-2015.

The law allows citizens to open private institutions to provide education in languages and dialects they traditionally use in their daily lives, on the condition that schools are subject to the law and inspected by the Ministry of National Education. Some universities offered elective Kurdish language courses, and two universities had Kurdish language departments, although several instructors in these departments were among the thousands of university personnel fired under official decrees, leaving the programs unstaffed. The law also allows reinstatement of former non-Turkish names of villages and neighborhoods and provides political parties and their members the right to campaign and use promotional material in any language; this right was not protected in practice.

The law restricts the use of languages other than Turkish in government and public services. In June authorities in some districts of Istanbul began enforcing a new regulation that requires 75 percent of signage be in Turkish and removed signs in Arabic. A government-appointed trustee mayor in Siirt removed a multilingual welcome sign in the majority Kurdish city in February. The original sign featured welcome messages in Kurdish, Turkish, and Arabic (using a Latin script). It was replaced with a sign only in Turkish.

On International Mother Language Day, February 21, members of parliament from opposition CHP and HDP parties delivered official remarks in the Laz, Armenian, and Kurdish languages. The official parliamentary record registered only an “x” in place of their respective remarks, and the footnotes indicated only the Turkish language would be recorded.

Although the government officially allows the use of Kurdish in private education and in public discourse, it did not extend permission for Kurdish-language instruction to public education.

An Armenian-language television station, Luys TV, inaugurated its programming by broadcasting Orthodox Christmas services in January. The channel featured news broadcasts, children’s programs, and discussion forums on topical issues for the community, according to media reports.

Romani communities reported being subjected to disproportionate police violence and housing loss due to urban transformation projects that extended into their traditional areas of residence. Members of the Romani community also reported they faced problems with access to education, housing, health care, and employment. Roma reported difficulty in utilizing government offers to subsidize rent on apartments due to discriminatory rental practices. Unofficial estimates indicated more than 90 percent of Roma were unemployed, although many worked in jobs in the informal economy. In line with a national Romani strategy adopted by the cabinet in 2016, the government carried out a number of pilot projects to enhance social inclusion of Romani citizens, including vocational courses offered by the government’s employment agency, IsKur. Roma advocates complained there was little concrete advancement for Roma. They also expressed concern that NGOs closed during the state of emergency that offered literacy courses to Roma remained shut or continued to face severe restrictions.

While the law does not explicitly criminalize LGBTI status or conduct, provisions of law concerning “offenses against public morality,” “protection of the family,” and “unnatural sexual behavior” sometimes served as a basis for abuse by police and discrimination by employers.

Numerous LGBTI organizations reported a continued sense of vulnerability as restrictions on their freedom of speech, assembly, and association continued. During the year the Ankara governor’s office continued its indefinite ban instituted in 2017 on all public LGBTI events in the province, citing public safety concerns,. In April a regional administrative court lifted the ban and rejected the government’s argument that the prohibition was necessary because some individuals might be provoked to violence by LGBTI events. Despite the decision, the Ankara governor’s office did not change its policy on LGBTI events in the capital and continued to block events on an individual basis.

The criminal code does not include specific protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The law allows for up to three years in prison for hate speech or injurious acts related to language, race, nationality, color, gender, disability, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion, or sectarian differences. Human rights groups criticized the law’s failure to include protections based on gender identity and noted it was sometimes used to restrict freedom of speech and assembly rather than to protect minorities. LGBTI definitions were not included in the law, but authorities reported a general “gender” concept in the constitution provides for protections for LGBTI individuals. KAOS-GL, a local NGO focused on LGBTI rights, maintained that, due to the law’s failure to recognize the existence of LGBTI individuals, authorities did not provide them social protection.

KAOS-GL reported that some LGBTI individuals were unable to access health services or faced discrimination. Some LGBTI individuals reported they believed it necessary to hide their identities, faced mistreatment by health-service providers (in many cases preferring not to request any service), and noted that prejudice against HIV-positive individuals negatively affected perceptions of the LGBTI community.

During the year LGBTI individuals experienced discrimination, intimidation, and violent crimes. Human rights groups reported that police and prosecutors frequently failed to pursue cases of violence against transgender persons or accepted justification for perpetrators’ actions. Police often did not arrest suspects or hold them in pretrial detention, as was common with other defendants. When arrests were made, defendants could claim “unjustifiable provocation” under the penal code and request a reduced sentence. Judges routinely applied the law to reduce the sentences of persons who killed LGBTI individuals. Courts of appeal previously upheld these verdicts based in part on the “immoral nature” of the victim. LGBTI advocates reported that police detained transgender individuals engaged in sex work to extract payoffs and that courts and prosecutors created an environment of impunity for attacks on transgender persons involved in sex work.

The LGBTI advocacy organization KAOS-GL reported that at least 48 LGBTI individuals faced physical assault in 2018. Of those, only nine cases were reported to authorities; prosecutors pursued one criminal case of the nine reported. In March security personnel at a nightclub in Eskisehir first blocked three transgender individuals from entering the facility, then assaulted the group while a police officer watched and failed to intervene, according to a KAOS-GL report. In May a transsexual woman in Antalya was killed, reportedly due to her identity. The alleged perpetrator was subsequently arrested, and a trial was underway at year’s end. In October two LGBTI individuals were verbally and physically assaulted on a public bus in Antalya. According to activists, the perpetrators justified their actions to police using homophobic insults.

In April a transwoman reported that she was stopped on the street by police officers requesting she provide identification. After inspecting her identity card, police asked her, “Aren’t you ashamed? You are a man, why do you dress like a woman?”; when she tried to record their remarks, police used pepper spray before beating her and bringing her to the police station. After contacting a local LGBTI organization, the woman was released to a hospital. Police charged her with “insult” and resisting the officer on duty.

For the fifth consecutive year, the governor’s office banned Istanbul’s Pride March, citing public safety concerns. Despite the ban and heavy police presence, several hundred activists and supporters took part in the event. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up crowds and prevent participants from entering areas in and around Taksim Square, briefly detaining five participants. Organizers did not hold a transgender march again during the year due to security concerns. Independent activists also reported police presence at all events during the week leading up to the pride march, which they interpreted as an intimidation tactic.

In addition to Istanbul, authorities prohibited pride marches from taking place in Ankara, Antalya, Izmir, Gaziantep, and Mersin. Local and international human rights groups widely criticized the decisions as violations of the freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. Events took place in most cities despite the bans and resulted in police interventions breaking up the marches.

In August Istanbul police blocked the “Queer Olympix” sporting event scheduled to take place in Istanbul with more than 130 athletes expecting to take part. Organizers reported on social media that authorities justified their action as “a precaution against provocations that may occur due to social sensitivities.” A review of media coverage of LGBTI issues by KAOS-GL, released in April, concluded that half of all stories contained hate speech and discriminatory language.

Some LGBTI groups reported harassment by police, government, and university authorities. University groups complained that rectors denied them permission to organize, and some indicated they faced administrative investigations or other sanctions for participating in events. In May students at the Middle East Technical University organized a pride march over the objections of the university administration. Police detained 22 individuals while breaking up the event using pepper spray, plastic bullets, and tear gas. Organizers reported that 10 of those detained were later stripped of scholarships and educational loans. Civil rights defenders criticized the subsequent indictment of 19 participants as legal harassment of the LGBTI community.

LGBTI organizations reported the government used regular and detailed audits against them to create administrative burdens and threatened the possibility of large fines.

Multiple sources reported discrimination in housing, since landlords refused to rent to LGBTI individuals or charged significantly higher prices.

Many persons with HIV/AIDS reported discrimination in access to employment, housing, public services, benefits, and health care. Rights organizations noted that the country lacked sufficient laws protecting persons with HIV/AIDS from discrimination and that there were legal obstacles to anonymous HIV testing. Due to pervasive social stigma against persons with HIV/AIDS, many individuals avoided testing for HIV due to fear the results would be used against them. In December, on World AIDS Day, the Positive Solidarity organization released a statement saying that 49 percent of the persons with HIV were not aware of their HIV status. They assessed that although access to diagnosis and treatment of HIV was readily available, persons avoided being tested due to concerns about social prejudices, stigmatization, and discrimination. In July a teacher was dismissed following the disclosure of his HIV-positive status to his employer by his workplace physician. The individual’s lawyer argued the information should have remained confidential and should not serve as a justification for dismissal. A lawsuit initiated by the dismissed employee continued at year’s end.

The government launched an HIV/AIDS control program to raise awareness and combat risk factors. The government also implemented HIV/AIDS education into the national education curriculum.

Alevis and Christians, including Armenian Apostolics, remained the subject of hate speech and discrimination. The term “Armenian” remained a common slur. Attacks on minority places of worship were rare.

According to the Hrant Dink Foundation’s Media Watch on Hate Speech Report, an analysis of national and local newspapers between January 1 and August 31 found 2,635 instances of published hate speech that targeted national, ethnic, and religious groups. The most-targeted groups were Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians.

Atheists also remained the subject of intimidation in progovernment media, albeit at a lower level relative to other religious minorities.

Conditional refugees and displaced Syrians under temporary protection also faced increased societal discrimination and violence during the year (see section 2.d.).

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, and penalties range from three to 10 years in prison. Rape of a victim younger than age 14 is punishable by 10 to 25 years in prison. A cultural bias against reporting or acknowledging rape made it difficult to determine the extent of the problem.

The law prohibits domestic violence, including spousal abuse, through provisions in the criminal code that address intentional infliction of injury. Penalties range from fines to 15 years in prison, based on the extent of the injury, although enforcement of the law varied. Anecdotal reports indicated domestic violence against women was common; most victims of domestic violence kept silent because they were unaware of their rights or feared increased violence from husbands and relatives.

Sexual Harassment: No law specifically prohibits sexual harassment, and reports suggested sexual harassment existed in the workplace.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: By law women have full legal equality with men, including equal pay, access to loans, the ability to start and own a business, and access to government jobs. Nevertheless, women continued to experience discrimination due to cultural biases, and the law was not consistently enforced. The government restricted women from working in some dangerous and environmentally unsafe jobs. Beginning in February police began a campaign of harassment of female drivers. On numerous occasions police confiscated women’s licenses and cars for ostensible minor reasons, such as lacking an item in the legally required first-aid kit. The government did not acknowledge, address, or report on discrimination against women.

Children

Birth Registration: By law a child derives citizenship from his or her parents. A child born to stateless persons possessing permanent resident status in the country is also a citizen.

Education: Education was free, compulsory, and universal through grades 10 or 11, depending on what year a child started school.

Early and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age for marriage is 18.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The legal age of consent is 16. The law forbids the production of pornographic materials or objects for distribution, as well as the advertisement or trade in text, movies or videos, graphics, or other objects of a pornographic nature, including those involving children.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There is no organized Jewish community in the country. In 2016 it was estimated that 200 to 250 Jews resided in the country. There were no reports of anti-Semitic activity.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities in employment, education, access to health care, and the provision of state services in other areas. But practical application, such as the accessibility of both public and private buildings, varied. Members of the disability rights community reported that persons with disabilities were generally unable to find satisfactory employment due to unofficial discrimination.

The government provided subsidies and pensions for persons with disabilities as well as housing, free health care, and tax-exempt status. The government constructed or was constructing comprehensive educational and treatment facilities for children with disabilities in all five provinces of the country.

The law provides for equal rights and freedoms for all citizens.

The law designates Turkmen as the official language, although it also provides for the rights of speakers of minority languages. Russian remained prevalent in commerce and everyday life in the capital, even as the government continued its campaign to conduct official business solely in Turkmen.

Non-Turkmen speakers in government noted that some avenues for promotion and job advancement were not available to them, and only a handful of non-Turkmen occupied high-level jobs in government. In some cases, applicants for government jobs had to provide information about their ethnicity going back three generations.

Sexual contact between men is illegal under Article 135 of the criminal code, with punishment of up to two years in prison and the possible imposition of an additional two- to five-year term in a labor camp. The law also stipulates sentences of up to 20 years for repeated acts of pederasty, same-sex acts with juveniles, or the spread of HIV or other sexually transmitted infections through same-sex contact. The law does not mention same-sex sexual contact between women. Enforcement of the law was selective. Antidiscrimination laws do not apply to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons. Society did not accept transgender individuals, and the government provided no legal protection or recognition of their gender identity.

In October RFE/RL published an anonymous account by a 24-year-old doctor of his challenges as a gay man in the country. RFE/RL later reported the man had disappeared and named him as Kasymberdi Garaev. Garaev’s parents and siblings were also reportedly missing. After a few days, Garaev resurfaced and recanted his story. Chronicles of Turkmenistan reported that authorities informed all medical staff in the country that they needed to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases at their own expense because a doctor had “dishonored the profession with his immoral behavior.”

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape is punishable by a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, but spousal rape is not included in the legal definition of this offense. The law recognizes domestic violence as a criminal offense. Under the law domestic violence offenses are punishable by a maximum five years’ imprisonment or a maximum fine of Australian dollars (AUD) 1,000 ($680), or both. Under the assault provisions of the penal code, the maximum penalty for common assault is six months’ imprisonment, and for assault with actual bodily harm, five years.

Police have a Domestic Violence Unit, employ a “no-drop” evidence-based prosecution policy in cases of violence against women, and operate a 24-hour emergency telephone line for victims of domestic violence. The law recognizes the existence of domestic violence and gives police explicit powers to intervene in violent circumstances, including the power to enter private property and order a person who has committed an act of domestic violence to vacate property, whether or not that individual has rights to that property, if another person at risk of further violence occupies it. The Women’s Crisis Center provided counseling services, but there were no shelters for abused women. Cases of rape and domestic violence often went unreported due to lack of awareness of women’s rights and traditional and cultural pressures on victims, although the Attorney General’s Office and police conducted nationwide awareness campaigns.

Sexual Harassment: The law does not specifically prohibit sexual harassment but prohibits indecent behavior, including lewd touching. The Tuvalu Study on People with Disability report, released by the government in 2018, found that women with disabilities were subject to abuse and harassment, including sexual abuse.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: Aspects of the law contribute to an unequal status for women, for example in land inheritance and child custody rights. No law prevents employment discrimination based on gender or requires equal pay for equal work, and such discrimination occurred. Nonetheless, women increasingly held positions in the health and education sectors and headed a number of NGOs.

Children

Birth Registration: A child derives citizenship at birth, whether born in the country or abroad, if either parent is a citizen. The law requires registration of births within 10 days, a practice generally observed.

Education: Education is compulsory until age 15. No law specifically mandates free basic education, but government policy generally provides free basic education for all.

Child Abuse: The government does not collect or publish data on child abuse, and there were no reports of child abuse during the year. Anecdotal evidence, however, indicated child abuse occurred. The law prohibits corporal punishment.

Early and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age of marriage for both girls and boys is 18.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The age of consent for sexual relations is 15. Sexual relations with a girl younger than 13 carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. Sexual relations with a girl older than 12 but younger than 15 carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment; however, no law prohibits the use, procurement, or offering of boys from age 15 through 17 for sex. The victim’s consent is irrelevant under both these provisions; however, in the latter case, reasonable belief the victim was 15 or older is a permissible defense. No provision of law pertains specifically to child pornography, although the penal code prohibits obscene publications in general. Although child trafficking is prohibited, the law prescribes a harsher punishment for the trafficking of adults than of children.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There was no known Jewish community, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

There were no confirmed reports during the year that Tuvalu was a source, destination, or transit country for victims of human trafficking.

The law does not specifically prohibit discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental disabilities. Government services to address the specific needs of persons with disabilities were very limited. There were no mandated building accessibility provisions for persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities had limited access to information and communications, including participation in civic life.

A 2018 government report found that abuse and discrimination against persons with disabilities was prevalent, and women with disabilities were particularly vulnerable to abuse. There were no reports of investigations or punishment by the government for violence and abuses against persons with disabilities, but societal norms may limit the reporting of such incidents particularly against women and girls with disabilities.

Children with disabilities reportedly had lower school attendance rates at all levels than other children. Some students with disabilities attended public primary schools both in Funafuti and in the outer islands. Parents decide which school a child with disabilities attends after consultation with an adviser from the Fusi Alofa Association, a disabilities-focused NGO.

The law prohibits sexual conduct between men, with penalties of seven to 15 years’ imprisonment, but there were no reports the government enforced these provisions of the law. The law does not specifically prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. There are no hate crime laws, nor are there criminal justice mechanisms to aid in the prosecution of bias-motivated crimes against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community. There were no reports of violence against persons based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but social stigma or intimidation may inhibit reporting of such discrimination or violence.

Persons with HIV/AIDS faced some societal and employment discrimination. The government and NGOs cooperated to inform the public regarding HIV/AIDS and to counter discrimination.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape of women, which is punishable by life imprisonment or death. The law does not address spousal rape. The penal code defines rape as “unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or a girl without her consent.” Men accused of raping men are tried under a section of the penal code that prohibits “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.” The law also criminalizes domestic violence and provides up to two- years’ imprisonment for conviction.

Rape remained a common problem throughout the country, and the government did not effectively enforce the law. Local media reported numerous incidents of rape, often involving kidnap and killings of women, but the authorities were often unable to investigate and hold perpetrators accountable. Local media often reported that perpetrators of rape included persons in authority, such as religious leaders, local government officials, UPF and UPDF officers, teachers, and university staff. According to local media and local civil society organizations, rape victims often felt powerless to report their abusers, in part to avoid stigmatization. Civil society organizations and local media reported that, even when women reported cases of rape to the police, UPF officers blamed the women for causing the rape by dressing indecently, took bribes from the alleged perpetrators to stop the investigation and to pressure the victims into withdrawing the cases, or simply dismissed the accusations and refused to record them. According to civil society organizations, UPF personnel lacked the required skills for collection, preservation, and management of forensic evidence in sexual violence cases. On February 18, local media reported that a male UPF officer attached to Kirinya Police Station raped a female suspect. According to local media, the officer on the night of February 9 pulled the suspect out of the cell and into the open yard used to store impounded vehicles, where he threatened her with death if she resisted and then raped her. Afterward he ordered her back to the cell. Local media reported that, after the UPF released the victim on police bond, she attempted for three days to report the rape to the same police station, but the officers at Kirinya Police Station refused to record the case. The victim then reported the matter to Kira Police Station, where the officers recorded the matter and had the errant officer arrested. The UPF said it was conducting investigations in order to charge its officer with rape in court but did not do so by year’s end.

Gender-based violence was also common according to local media and civil society organizations. On August 12, local media reported that a UPDF officer beat an 18-year-old pregnant woman after she declined his sexual advances. The UPDF said it had arrested the officer as it carried out its investigations but did not reveal any findings by year’s end. The local civil society organizations Action Aid, MIFUMI, and the Center for Domestic Violence Prevention operated shelters in regions across the country where victims of gender-based violence could receive counseling and legal advice.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C and establishes a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for convicted perpetrators, or life imprisonment if the victim dies. According to the 2016 Demographics and Health Survey (DHS), the latest DHS, 0.3 percent of the female population under age 50 have undergone FGM/C. On January 21, local media reported that large “gangs” of at least 100 persons, armed with machetes and sticks, marched through Kween district, forcibly dragged girls out of their houses, and subjected them to FGM/C. Local media reported that the gangs beat up UPF officers who attempted to intervene. Deputy Minister for Gender, Labor, and Social Development Peace Mutuuzo said persons who aspired to political office in the 2021 local elections in Kween, Kapchorwa, and Bukwo regions, where FGM/C was prevalent, were funding FGM/C as a strategy for winning hearts and minds. The UPF said it had arrested 16 men and three women it suspected of involvement in forceful FGM/C. The speaker of parliament noted that the government allocated 200 million shillings ($53,333) annually to fight FGM/C, and Mutuuzo said her ministry used this money to sensitize communities against the practice.

Other Harmful Traditional Practices: According to local media and NGOs, ritual child killings, violence against widows, and acid attacks were prevalent. Local media reported that traditional healers (witch doctors) kidnapped and killed children to use their organs for ancestral worship. Local NGOs reported cases in which wealthy entrepreneurs and politicians paid traditional healers to sacrifice children to ensure their continued wealth and then bribed police officers to stop the investigations. On August 23, local media reported that the UPF had started a manhunt for a man who attempted to kill his daughter as sacrifice in ancestral worship. Emmanuel Bwana reportedly blindfolded his 13-year-old daughter and drove her to an animist’s shrine, where they stripped her naked and started to perform traditional rituals. The animist, however, rejected the girl as sacrifice because she was menstruating. The UPF did not arrest the man by year’s end.

Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes sexual harassment and provides for penalties of up to 14 years’ imprisonment, but authorities did not effectively enforce the law. Sexual harassment was a widespread problem in homes, schools, universities, workplaces, and in public spaces. Local media reported numerous incidents of male senior public servants in the legislature and judiciary who demanded sexual favors from female subordinates in exchange for job retention, promotion, and nomination for official trips. Local media reported that public attorney Samantha Mwesigye on March 10 petitioned the Office of the Prime Minister seeking action against her superior, Deputy Solicitor General Christopher Gashirabake, who, she said, sexually harassed her for 10 years. Mwesigye noted that she had received no assistance despite having written to the Solicitor General several times over the years and had instead been advised to “use peaceful means” to resolve the issue instead of instituting a sexual harassment committee to carry out investigations as mandated by law. On May 20, the Solicitor General said he had finally formed a committee to investigate Mwesigye’s allegations. The committee concluded on August 21 that it had cleared Gashirabake of the sexual harassment allegations having found no evidence to prove that he had victimized Mwesigye. On September 2, local media reported that Mwesigye missed her August salary after the judiciary took her off its payroll. According to local media, the judiciary said Mwesigye went off the payroll automatically after she absconded from work for 30 days.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The law provides women the same legal status and rights as men, but the government did not enforce the law effectively. Local NGOs reported numerous cases of discrimination against women, including in divorce, employment, education, and owning or managing businesses and property. Many customary laws discriminate against women in adoption, marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Under customary laws in many areas, widowed women cannot own or inherit property or retain custody of their children. Local NGOs reported that the government occasionally paid significantly less compensation to women than men in exchange for land it repossessed, while in some cases, it forcefully evicted women without compensation. Traditional divorce law in many areas requires women to meet stricter evidentiary standards than men to prove adultery. In some ethnic groups, men can “inherit” the widows of their deceased brothers. The law does not recognize cohabiting relationships, and women involved in such relationships have no judicial recourse to protect their rights.

Children

Birth Registration: The law accords citizenship to children born inside or outside the country if at least one parent or grandparent is a citizen at the time of birth. Abandoned children younger than age 18 with no known parents are considered citizens, as are children younger than 18 adopted by citizens.

The law requires citizens to register a birth within three months. Lack of birth registration generally did not result in denial of public services although some primary schools, especially those in urban centers, required birth certificates for enrollment. Enrollment in public secondary schools, universities, and other tertiary institutions required birth certificates. For additional information, see Appendix C.

Education: The law provides for compulsory education through the completion of primary school by age 13, and the government provided tuition-free education in select public primary and secondary schools (ages six to 18 years). Parents, however, were required to provide lunch and schooling materials for their children, expenses that many parents could not afford. Local media and civil society organizations reported that early and forced marriages and teenage pregnancy led to a higher rate of school dropouts for girls than for boys.

Child Abuse: The law prohibits numerous forms of child abuse and provides penalties of 2,400,000 shillings ($640) or five-year imprisonment or both for persons convicted of abusing children’s rights. The law defines “statutory rape” as any sexual contact outside marriage with a child younger than the age of 18, regardless of consent or age of the perpetrator, carrying a maximum penalty of death. Victims’ parents, however, often opted to settle cases out of court for a cash or in-kind payment. Corporal punishment in schools is illegal and punishable by up to three-year’s imprisonment. The law also provides for protection of children from hazardous employment and harmful traditional practices, including child marriage and FGM/C. Despite the law a pattern of child abuse existed in sexual assault, physical abuse, ritual killings, early marriage, FGM/C, child trafficking, infanticide, and child labor, among other abuses. Local media reported that in the vast majority of schools beating with a cane was the preferred method of discipline. A 2018 UNICEF report stated that three in four children had experienced physical violence both at home and in school. Government statistics also showed that more than one in three girls experienced sexual violence during her childhood, and that most did not report the incidents because they feared they would be shamed or embarrassed. Local media reported in February that traffickers at Arapai market in Soroti district auctioned off children, whose purchasers thereafter often forced them into sexual exploitation and begging (see section 7.c.).

Early and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age for marriage is 18, but authorities generally did not enforce this law. The DHS 2016 reported that 34 percent of women ages 20-24 married before age 18. Local media and civil society organizations reported that some parents in rural areas forced their teenage daughters into marriage after they got pregnant while others did so to earn dowries. Several local governments passed ordinances to outlaw early marriages. The Buyende District local government requires local government leaders to see birth certificates for the couple before registering marriages in order to confirm that the couple had reached the age of consent.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits commercial sexual exploitation, the sale and procurement of sexual services, and practices related to child pornography. It sets the minimum age for consensual sex at 18 years. The government did not enforce the law effectively, however, and the problem was pervasive. On February 29, local media reported that the UPF arrested a 71-year-old German philanthropist, Bernhard Bery Glaser, on allegations that he sexually abused girls at his gender-based-violence shelter in Kalangala district. The UPF reported that Glaser kept 30 girls at the shelter and forced them to take turns sleeping in his bedroom. Local UPF personnel told local media that they approved transfer of the girls to the shelter despite having received prior reports from the community over a five-year period suggesting wrongdoing at the shelter. The government charged Glaser with aggravated defilement and trafficking on April 2. The trial continued at year’s end.

Child Soldiers: The LRA, an armed group of Ugandan origin operating in the DRC, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, continued to hold children against their will.

Infanticide or Infanticide of Children with Disabilities: Local media and civil society organizations reported numerous incidents where animists killed children as sacrifice in ancestral worship.

Displaced Children: Local civil society organizations and media reported that poverty and famine drove families in the remote northeast Karamoja region to send many children to Kampala to find work and beg on the streets. Civil society organizations reported that traffickers often manipulated families in Karamoja to sell their children to traffickers with promises that the children would obtain a good education or a profitable job. Instead, traffickers forced the children to beg on the streets of Kampala or other major cities and gave them almost none of what they earned. Kampala City authorities worked with civil society organizations to return Karamojong street children to their families, but often the families soon returned the children to the streets because they partly depended on their collections to maintain their households.

Institutionalized Children: Local NGOs and the UHRC reported that the UPF often detained child and adult suspects in the same cells and held them beyond the legal limit of 48 hours prior to arraignment. The UHRC attributed this to the absence of juvenile cells at police stations and the continued failure to ascertain the correct age of suspects. According to local media, the UPF also raided several shelters for vulnerable and homeless children where it accused the management of sexually abusing the children.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The Jewish community had approximately 2,000 members centered in Mbale District, in the eastern part of the country. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental disabilities. It provides for access to education, employment, health services, information, communications, buildings, transportation, and the judicial system for persons with disabilities, but the government did not effectively enforce the law. Local media and activists for persons with disabilities reported that persons with disabilities experienced social prejudice and discrimination in social service delivery and in access to public spaces. According to local media, persons with disabilities said that taxes hampered their access to telecommunication technology. NGOs for persons with disabilities reported that a 2018 tax that levied a daily 200 shillings ($0.05) fee on social media use made communication expensive for deaf people, who used video online apps to communicate. Local media reported that some parents with children with disabilities hid them from the public out of shame, while some physically restrain them from moving by tethering them to tree trunks. Local civil society organizations reported that the government neither ran any support programming for persons with albinism, nor made an effort to establish the number of those with albinism or their concerns.

There were reports that the authorities used violence to displace an ethnic community from disputed land. According to local media and opposition politicians, authorities continued to evict members of the Acholi community from the disputed village of Apaa as they had in prior years. Media reports noted that at least 2,100 Acholi whom the UPDF and the Ugandan Wildlife Authority had evicted since 2017 remained displaced, with no access to farming land. On several occasions the government announced that all residents should vacate Apaa village to make way for a wildlife reserve but reversed the decision after uproar from the community’s leaders. The president then instituted a committee to devise a peaceful solution to the issue, but the committee did not report its findings by year’s end.

Indigenous minorities continued to accuse the government of marginalization that disabled them from participating in decisions affecting their livelihood. The UHRC reported that the government denied recognition to several ethnic minorities, leading them to “experience a sense of exclusion and marginalization.” The UHRC also reported that the government denied ethnic minorities access to adequate social services, particularly healthcare and education. The UHRC reported that the government continued in its refusal to compensate the Benet and Batwa people, whom it displaced from lands it designated as forest reserves. It noted that primary schools in the western part of the country forced pupils from minority ethnicities to study in the languages spoken by the dominant ethnicity in the region.

Consensual same-sex sexual conduct is illegal according to a colonial-era law that criminalizes “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and provides for a penalty of up to life imprisonment. Although the law does not restrict freedoms of expression or peaceful assembly for those speaking out about the human rights of LGBTI persons, in practice the government severely restricted such rights. The law does not prohibit discrimination against LGBTI persons in housing, employment, nationality laws, or access to government services.

LGBTI persons faced discrimination, legal restrictions, harassment, violence, and intimidation. Authorities perpetrated violence against LGBTI individuals and blocked some meetings organized by LGBTI persons and activists. Local civil society organizations reported that public and private health-care services turned away LGBTI persons who sought medication and some led community members to beat LGBTI persons who sought health care. Local civil society organizations reported that some LGBTI persons needed to pay bribes to public health-care providers before they received treatment. On October 23, the UPF subjected 16 homosexual and transgender people to forced medical examinations in an effort to “gather evidence” to support criminal charges against them for having participated in activities “against the order of nature.” On May 17, the UPF blocked a public meeting by LGBTI activists and persons to mark the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. UPF officers arrived at the designated venue an hour in advance and turned away guests, saying it was “an illegal assembly.” According to local civil society organizations, the UPF on August 20 arrested 33 transgender persons who were attending a training on sustainable development goals. On August 21, the government charged the 33 with holding an illegal assembly but later released them on bail. The case continued at year’s end.

Although the law prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS, discrimination and stigma were common and inhibited these persons from obtaining treatment and support. Local civil society organizations reported the stigma resulted from limited public knowledge about the methods of HIV transmission as well as “the belief that having HIV is shameful.” Civil society organizations reported that stigma pushed persons living with HIV to exclude themselves from social services and employment opportunities, including care programs. Local media and civil society organizations reported numerous incidents of parents who abandoned children living with HIV; and of persons, particularly men, who abandoned spouses who were living with HIV. The UPF, the UPS, and the UPDF regularly refused to recruit persons who tested positive for HIV, claiming their bodies would be too weak for the rigorous training and subsequent deployment.

In cooperation with the government, international and local NGOs sponsored public awareness campaigns to eliminate the stigma of HIV/AIDS. Government and HIV/AIDS counselors encouraged the population to test for and share information about HIV/AIDS with their partners and family. Persons with HIV/AIDS formed support groups to promote awareness in their communities.

Mob violence remained a problem. Communities often resorted to mob violence due to a lack of confidence in the UPF and the judiciary to deliver justice. They attacked and killed persons suspected of robbery, murder, rape, theft, ritual sacrifice, and witchcraft, among other crimes. Mobs often beat, lynched, burned, and otherwise brutalized their victims. On June 26, local media reported motorcycle taxi drivers in Kampala attacked two men they suspected of attempting to steal a motorcycle. According to media reports, the motorcycle taxi drivers took turns driving over one of the suspects while others beat the second with sticks and stoned him. The UPF said they managed to disperse the mob and take the suspected thieves to the hospital, but one died soon after admission.

Ukraine is a republic with a semipresidential political system composed of three branches of government: a unicameral legislature (Verkhovna Rada); an executive led by a directly elected president who is head of state and commander in chief, and a prime minister who is chosen through a legislative majority and as head of government leads the Cabinet of Ministers; and a judiciary. On April 21, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president in an election considered free and fair by international and domestic observers. On July 21, the country held early parliamentary elections that observers also considered free and fair.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs is responsible for maintaining internal security and order. The ministry oversees police and other law enforcement personnel. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is responsible for state security broadly defined, nonmilitary intelligence, and counterintelligence and counterterrorism matters. The Ministry of Internal Affairs reports to the Cabinet of Ministers, and the SBU reports directly to the president. The Ministry of Defense protects the country against foreign and domestic aggression, ensures sovereignty and the integrity of national borders, and exercises control over the activities of the armed forces in compliance with the law. The president is the supreme commander in chief of the armed forces. The Ministry of Defense reports directly to the president. The State Fiscal Tax Service exercises law enforcement powers through the tax police and reports to the Cabinet of Ministers. The State Migration Service under the Ministry of Internal Affairs implements state policy regarding border security, migration, citizenship, and registration of refugees and other migrants. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control over security forces in the territory controlled by the government.

Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture and other abuse of detainees by law enforcement personnel; harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers; arbitrary arrest and detention; substantial problems with the independence of the judiciary; restrictions on freedom of expression, the press, and the internet, including violence against journalists, censorship, and blocking of websites; refoulement; widespread government corruption; and crimes involving violence or threat of violence targeting persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons.

The government generally failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity. Human rights groups and the United Nations noted significant deficiencies in investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed by government security forces.

In the Russia-induced and -fueled conflict in the Donbas region, Russia-led forces reportedly engaged in killings of civilians; forced disappearances and abductions; torture; unlawful detentions; and committed gender-based violence. Other egregious human right issues in the areas controlled by Russia-led forces included harsh and life-threatening prison and detention center conditions; political prisoners; the absence of judicial independence; severe restrictions on freedom of expression, the press, and the internet; restrictions on the rights of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and religious freedom; restrictions on freedom of movement across the line of contact in eastern Ukraine; and unduly restricted humanitarian aid.

Significant human rights issues in Russia-occupied Crimea included: abductions; torture and abuse of detainees to extract confessions and punish persons resisting the occupation; unlawful detention; significant problems with the independence of the judiciary; restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including for members of the press; restrictions on the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association and religion. Occupation authorities in Crimea continued to engage in violence against and harassment of Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists in response to peaceful opposition to Russian occupation (see Crimea sub-report).

During the year the OHCHR and human rights groups documented fewer incidents of xenophobic societal violence and discrimination, compared with a spike in these incidents in 2018. Civil society groups remained concerned, however, about the lack of accountability for crimes committed by radical groups in cases documented in 2018. During the year members of such groups committed violent attacks on ethnic minorities (especially Roma), LGBTI persons, feminists, and other individuals they considered to be “un-Ukrainian” or “anti-Ukrainian.” The HRMMU noted that the failure of police and prosecutors to prevent these acts of violence, properly classify them as hate crimes, and effectively investigate and prosecute them created an environment of impunity and lack of justice for victims.

There were continued reports that the government provided grant funds to or cooperated with radical groups. For example, according to monitoring by independent investigative media outlet Bellingcat, during the year the Ministry of Youth and Sport awarded 845,000 hryvnias ($35,000) to groups–such as National Corps and C14 that have committed violence against minorities–to run “national-patriotic education projects” for children.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape of men or women. The penalty for rape is three to 15 years’ imprisonment. Sexual assault and rape continued to be significant problems.

On January 11, amendments to the criminal code increasing liability for sexual, domestic, and gender-based violence came into force. The amendments expanded the definition of rape and introduced stricter punishment for sexual coercion by up to three years of prison and forced abortion or sterilization by up to five years.

Domestic violence against women remained a serious problem. Spousal abuse was common. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 761 cases of domestic violence were registered during the first nine months of the year. Police issued approximately 44,000 domestic violence warnings and protection orders during the first nine months of the year. Punishment included fines, emergency restraining orders of up to 10 days, ordinary restraining orders from one to six months, administrative arrest, and community service. Human rights groups noted that the ability of agencies to detect and report cases of domestic violence was limited. Human rights groups asserted that law enforcement often did not consider domestic violence to be a serious crime but rather a private matter to be settled between spouses, but they also noted that police were starting to take the problem more seriously.

According to press reports, in early March an intoxicated man stabbed his 25-year-old former wife in Podolsk. The woman managed to run to a hospital, despite being pursued by her former husband. Their seven-year-old daughter witnessed the crime. Odesa police found and detained the perpetrator two days later. He was charged with “intentional infliction of bodily harm.”

According to the NGO La Strada, the conflict in the Donbas region led to a surge in violence against women across the country. Human rights groups attributed the increase in violence to posttraumatic stress experienced by IDPs fleeing the conflict and by soldiers returning from combat. IDPs reported instances of rape and sexual abuse; many claimed to have fled areas controlled by Russia-led forces because they feared sexual abuse.

As of late September the government operated 24 shelters for victims of domestic violence and 21 centers for social and psychological aid across the country for victims of domestic violence and child abuse.

Sexual Harassment: While the law prohibits coercing a person to have sexual intercourse, legal experts stated that safeguards against harassment were inadequate. The law puts sexual harassment in the same category as discrimination and sets penalties ranging from a fine to three years in prison. Women’s rights groups reported continuing and widespread sexual harassment, including coerced sex, in the workplace. Women rarely sought legal recourse because courts declined to hear their cases and rarely convicted perpetrators.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: While the law provides that women enjoy the same rights as men, women experienced discrimination in employment. According to the government commissioner on gender policy, women on average received 30 percent lower salaries than men. The Ministry of Health maintained a list of 50 occupations that remain prohibited for women.

Children

Birth Registration: Either birth in the country or to Ukrainian parents conveys citizenship. A child born to stateless parents residing permanently in the country is a citizen. The law requires that parents register a child within a month of birth, and failure to register sometimes resulted in denial of public services.

Registration of children born in Crimea or Russia-controlled areas in Donbas remained difficult. Authorities required hospital paperwork to register births. Russia-backed “authorities” routinely kept such paperwork if parents registered children in territories under their control, making it difficult for the child to obtain a Ukrainian birth certificate. In addition authorities did not recognize documents issued by Russian occupation authorities in Crimea or “authorities” in territories controlled by Russia-led forces. Persons living in Crimea and parts of Russia-controlled Donbas had to turn to Ukrainian courts with birth or death documents issued by occupational authorities in order to receive Ukrainian documents. The courts were obliged to make rulings in 24 hours; these decisions were then carried out by the registry office. Due to the lack of judges in local courts, Ukrainians living in regions occupied by Russia and Russia-led forces faced serious difficulty obtaining Ukrainian documents.

Child Abuse: Penalties for child abuse range from three years to life, depending on severity. The law criminalizes sexual relations between adults and persons younger than 16; violations are punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. A January 11 amendment to the criminal code qualifies sexual relations with a person younger than 14 as rape.

Human rights groups noted authorities lacked the capability to detect violence against children and refer victims for assistance. Preventive services remained underdeveloped. There were also instances of forced labor involving children (see section 7.c.).

Authorities did not take effective measures to protect children from abuse and violence and to prevent such problems. The ombudsman for human rights noted the imperfection of mechanisms to protect children who survived or witnessed violence, particularly violence committed by their parents. According to the law, parents were the legal representatives of their children, even if they perpetrated violence against them. There is no procedure for appointing a temporary legal representative for a child during the investigation of alleged parental violence.

According to press reports, on May 27, police officers in Zhytomyr Oblast, while visiting the home of local residents, learned that a child was missing. Police uncovered that a few months earlier, the stepfather had hit a child, who fell and died as a result. Both spouses then burnt the body. Authorities detained the parents detained on charges of first-degree murder and removed two other children from the family and placed them in a rehabilitation center.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum age for marriage is 18. A court may grant a child as young as 16 permission to marry if it finds marriage to be in the child’s interest. Romani rights groups reported early marriages involving girls younger than 18 were common in the Romani community.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits the commercial sexual exploitation of children, the sale of children, offering or procuring a child for child prostitution, and practices related to child pornography. The minimum prison sentence for child rape is eight years. Molesting a child younger than 16 is punishable by imprisonment for up to five years. The same offense committed against a child younger than 14 is punishable by imprisonment for five to eight years. The age of consent is 16.

Sexual exploitation of children, however, remained significantly underreported. Commercial sexual exploitation of children remained a serious problem.

Domestic and foreign law enforcement officials reported that a significant amount of child pornography on the internet continued to originate in the country. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that children from socially disadvantaged families and those in state custody continued to be at high risk of trafficking, including for commercial sexual exploitation and the production of pornography. For example, on September 4, the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv authorized the arrest of a Kyiv resident who allegedly produced and disseminated pornography of his two children. An investigation was underway as of October.

Displaced Children: The majority of IDP children were from Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, authorities registered more than 240,000 children as IDPs. Human rights groups believed this number was low.

Institutionalized Children: The child welfare system continued to rely on long-term residential care for children at social risk or without parental care, although the number of residential-care institutions continued to drop. Government policies to address the abandonment of children reduced the number of children deprived of parental care. A government strategy for 2017-2026 calls for the transformation of the institutionalized child-care system into one that provides a family-based or family-like environment for children.

Human rights groups and media outlets reported unsafe, inhuman, and sometimes life-threatening conditions in some institutions. Officials of several state-run institutions and orphanages were allegedly complicit or willfully negligent in the sex and labor trafficking of girls and boys under their care.

On August 15, press outlets reported that 20 children between the ages of 10 and 17 from the Batiovo Orphanage in Zakarpattia Oblast reported physical violence and sexual abuse. Local police started an investigation.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at HYPERLINK “https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html”https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

According to census data and international Jewish groups, an estimated 103,600 Jews lived in the country, constituting approximately 0.2 percent of the population. According to the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (VAAD), there were approximately 300,000 persons of Jewish ancestry in the country, although the number might be higher. Before the conflict in eastern Ukraine, according to VAAD, approximately 30,000 Jews lived in the Donbas region. Jewish groups estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 Jews lived in Crimea before Russia’s attempted annexation.

According to the National Minority Rights Monitoring Group (NMRMG), as in 2018, no cases of suspected anti-Semitic violence were recorded as of October 1. The last recorded anti-Semitic violence against individuals occurred in 2016. The NMRMG recorded approximately 10 cases of anti-Semitic vandalism as of October 1, compared with 11 incidents during the same period in 2018. According to the NMRMG, the drop in violence and anti-Semitic vandalism was due to better police work and prosecution of those committing anti-Semitic acts.

Graffiti swastikas continued to appear in Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, and other cities. According to press reports, on September 15, perpetrators vandalized a memorial to more than 55,000 Jews murdered in Bohdanivka in Mykolaiv Oblast. Jewish organizations expressed concern about the continued existence of Krakivsky Market and new construction atop a historic Jewish cemetery in Lviv. There were several anti-Semitic incidents targeting the Babyn Yar memorial reported during the year.

In line with the country’s 2015 decommunization and denazification law, authorities continued to rename communist-era streets, bridges, and monuments. Some were renamed in honor of 20th century Ukrainian nationalists, some of whom were associated with anti-Semitism.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government did not effectively enforce these provisions. The law requires the government to provide access to public venues, health services, information, communications, transportation, and the judicial system and opportunities for involvement in public, educational, cultural, and sporting activities for persons with disabilities. The law also requires employers to take into account the individual needs of employees with disabilities. The government generally did not enforce these laws.

Advocacy groups maintained that, despite the legal requirements, most public buildings remained inaccessible to persons with disabilities. Access to employment, education, health care, transportation, and financial services remained difficult (see section 7.d.).

Patients in mental-health facilities remained at risk of abuse, and many psychiatric hospitals continued to use outdated methods and treatments. According to February press reports, patients of a psychiatric institution in Bilopillia in Sumy Oblast complained about cruel and humiliating treatment by staff who allegedly beat and verbally abused them and left them naked for several days. The facility’s administration reportedly forced patients to work on the institution’s cattle farm. The local prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.

Law enforcement generally took appropriate measures to punish those responsible for violence and abuses against persons with disabilities.

By law employers must set aside 4 percent of employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. NGOs noted that many of those employed to satisfy the requirement received nominal salaries but did not actually perform work at their companies.

A law adopted in 2017 guaranteed every child with a disability the right to study at regular secondary schools. It called for the creation of inclusive groups in preschool facilities, secondary and vocational schools, and colleges. According to the president’s commissioner for the rights of children, 12,000 children with disabilities went to regular schools within the program of inclusive education.

Persons with disabilities in Russia-controlled areas in the east of the country suffered from a lack of appropriate care.

Mistreatment of members of minority groups and harassment of foreigners of non-Slavic appearance remained problematic. According to the Ethnic Minorities’ Rights Monitoring Group at the Congress of Ethnic Communities of Ukraine, as of October 1, the number of xenophobic incidents (attacks, vandalism, and “public expressions of xenophobia”) totaled 61, compared with 89 during the same period in 2018. Human rights organizations stated the requirement to prove actual intent, including proof of premeditation, to secure a conviction made it difficult to apply the laws against offenses motivated by racial, national, or religious hatred. Police and prosecutors continued to prosecute racially motivated crimes under laws against hooliganism or related offenses.

There were reports of societal violence against Roma. For example, according to press reports, on October 24, an unknown assailant in Zaporizhzhia attacked Romani rights activist Anzhelika Belova with a knife. According to press reports, the attacker followed her home from a supermarket into her apartment building, where he stabbed her. Belova survived, and police arrested the alleged perpetrator. An investigation was under way.

There were reports of attacks on Romani settlements. In one such case, there was an arson attack on a Romani camp on the outskirts of Ivano-Frankivsk on March 25. Ten men dressed in black attacked the settlement and hurled Molotov cocktails at the camp. The ensuing fire damaged two homes. When police arrived, Romani residents refused to file a complaint.

There were multiple reports that members of some radical groups disrupted gatherings related to the rights of Roma. In one example, human rights groups reported that on May 27, a man carrying an ax, two knives, and other weapons attempted to disrupt a briefing of human rights activists about violence against members of the Romani community. He broke into the room and started verbally insulting Romani individuals present. When a press center guard intervened, he threatened those present with two knives and pepper spray. Police responded and removed the perpetrator.

Human rights activists were concerned about the lack of accountability in cases of attacks on Roma documented in 2018. For example, on August 14, a Lviv district court found two high school students guilty of hooliganism for participating in an attack on a Romani camp that resulted in the killing of a man in June 2018. The court sentenced them to four-and-a-half years of prison. The court did not consider racial motivations or hate crime provisions.

In April the Kyiv Oblast Prosecutor’s Office appealed a November 2018 decision of the Holosiivsky District Court in Kyiv dropped charges against C14 leader Serhiy Mazur, the alleged perpetrator in another violent attack against a Romani settlement in Kyiv in April 2018. Court hearings have been postponed six times. Human rights NGOs voiced concerns that impunity for past attacks fueled more violence.

Roma continued to face governmental and societal discrimination and significant barriers accessing education, health care, social services, and employment. According to Council of Europe experts, 60 percent of Roma were unemployed, 40 percent had no documents, and only 1 percent had a university degree. According to the Romani women’s foundation, Chirikli, local authorities erected a number of barriers to prevent issuing national identification documents to Roma. Authorities hampered access to education for persons who lacked documents and segregated Romani children into special schools or lower-quality classrooms.

During the year many Roma fled settlements in areas controlled by Russia-led forces and moved elsewhere in the country. According to Chirikli, approximately 10,000 Roma were among the most vulnerable members of the country’s IDP population. Because many Roma lacked documents, obtaining IDP assistance, medical care, and education was especially difficult.

There were reports that police used laws on human trafficking or prostitution as a pretext to target LGBTI persons. For example, on April 20, police in Dnipro raided a gay nightclub. According to the LGBTI rights organization Nash Mir, at around 1 a.m., 20 to 25 police officers burst into the nightclub, forced all those present to lie down on the floor for three hours, and seized all mobile phones and the club’s equipment. Officers reportedly behaved in an aggressive and homophobic way, expressed insults, made jokes related to sexual orientation, and forced two foreigners, who were in the club, to sing loudly the anthem of Ukraine. While the purported grounds for the raid were the prevention of human trafficking, the published police report about the raid contained no evidence of human trafficking but claimed that the club’s owners took money from patrons in exchange for “creating the conditions for disorderly sexual intercourse.” Nash Mir called the police actions “obviously homophobic and illegal.”

There was societal violence against LGBTI persons often perpetrated by members of violent radical groups, and authorities often did not adequately investigate these cases or hold perpetrators to account. The HRMMU noted that attacks against members of the LGBTI community and other minorities were rarely classified under criminal provisions pertaining to hate crimes, which carried heavier penalties. Crimes and discrimination against LGBTI persons remained underreported. For example, according to press reports, on June 23, four unknown men beat two participants in the Kyiv Pride March who were heading home after the event, spraying them with pepper spray, kicking them, and insulting them.

According to the Nash Mir, radical groups consistently tried to disrupt LGBTI events with violence or threats of violence. For example, on April 11, members of radical groups Tradition and Order and Katechon attacked participants of the European Lesbian Conference in Kyiv. Perpetrators broke into the premises and sprayed tear gas, injuring 10 persons. Police intervened and detained the attackers; the attackers were subsequently released, and no charges were filed.

Although leading politicians and ministers condemned attacks on LGBTI gatherings and individuals, officials sometimes made public statements that were homophobic or that called for violence against LGBTI persons. For example, Sumy deputy mayor Maksym Halytsky posted on a social network a picture of a concentration camp with the caption “before long the so-called prides will look like this.” The Prosecutor General’s Office initiated criminal proceedings on charges of “deliberate actions to incite national, racial, or religious hatred, to humiliate national honor and dignity, or to offend the feelings of citizens in the light of their beliefs.”

The labor code prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. No law, however, prohibits such discrimination in other areas, and discrimination was reportedly widespread in employment, housing, education, and other sectors.

Transgender persons reported difficulties obtaining official documents reflecting their gender identity, which resulted in discrimination in health care, education, and other areas.

During the year the HRMMU reported that in the Russia-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, social stigma and intolerance based on sexual orientation and gender identity have become more acute, reportedly due to the application of laws criminalizing the “propaganda of same-sex relationships.”

Stigma and discrimination in health-care centers were barriers to HIV-positive individuals’ receiving medical services. UNICEF reported that children with HIV/AIDS were at high risk of abandonment, social stigma, and discrimination. Authorities prevented many children infected with HIV/AIDS from attending kindergartens or schools. Persons with HIV/AIDS faced discrimination in housing and employment.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, which is punishable by death under the penal code. The penal code does not address spousal rape.

The penal code allows men to use physical means, including violence, at their discretion against female and minor family members. Punishments issued by courts in domestic abuse cases were often minimal. In some cases, police shared a victim’s contact information with her or his family, which sometimes reached the assailant.

In general, the government did not enforce domestic abuse laws effectively, and domestic abuse against women, including spousal abuse, remained a problem. For example, in February local and international media reported the case of Hind Albolooki, an Emirati woman who fled the UAE and attempted to claim asylum in Macedonia after allegedly receiving threats from family members for wanting a divorce from her abusive husband. Albolooki, who faced deportation after the asylum claim was denied, remained in an immigration detention center in Macedonia at year’s end while the European Court of Human Rights processed her case. There were reports employers raped or sexually assaulted foreign domestic workers. These cases rarely went to court, and those that did led to few convictions. In one such conviction in December 2018, a man was sentenced to a suspended three-month jail term and deportation after sexually assaulting two domestic workers. In sharia courts, which are primarily responsible for civil matters between Muslims, the extremely high burden of proof for a rape case contributed to a low conviction rate. In addition, female victims of rape or other sexual crimes faced the possibility of prosecution for consensual sex outside marriage instead of receiving assistance from authorities.

Victims of domestic abuse may file complaints with police units stationed in major public hospitals. Social workers and counselors, usually female, also maintained offices in public hospitals and police stations. There were domestic abuse centers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah, and Sharjah.

The government, in coordination with social organizations, sought to increase awareness of domestic violence, conducting seminars, educational programs, symposiums, and conferences. The Dubai Foundation for Women and Children increased awareness of domestic violence through social media, television, radio programming, and advertising; by hosting workshops; and sponsoring a hotline.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law does not address FGM/C, although the Ministry of Health prohibits hospitals and clinics from performing the procedure. FGM/C is practiced by some tribal groups and was reportedly declining as a traditional custom, yet little information was available. Foreign residents from countries where FGM/C is prevalent undertook the practice.

Sexual Harassment: The government prosecutes harassment via the penal code. Conviction of “disgracing or dishonoring” a person in public is punishable by a minimum of one year and up to 15 years in prison if the victim is younger than age 14. Conviction for “infamous” acts against the rules of decency is punishable by a penalty of six months in prison, and “dishonoring a woman by word or deed on a public roadway” is also a punishable offense. The government generally enforced this law.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: Women in general faced legal and economic discrimination, with noncitizen women at a particular disadvantage.

The government’s interpretation of sharia applies in personal status cases and family law. Muslim women must have the consent of their guardians to marry. Local interpretation of sharia forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslims. In addition, the law permits a man to have as many as four wives, women normally inherit less than men, and a son’s inheritance may be double that of a daughter.

For a woman to obtain a divorce with a financial settlement, she must prove her husband inflicted physical or moral harm upon her, abandoned her for at least three months, or had not provided for her or their children’s upkeep. Physical abuse claims require medical reports and two male witnesses. It is up to the judge’s discretion to consider women as full witnesses or half witnesses. Alternatively, women may divorce by paying compensation or surrendering their dowry to their husbands.

The strict interpretation of sharia does not apply to child custody cases, and courts have applied the “the best interests of the child” standard since 2010. According to sharia a divorced woman may lose custody of her children to their father once daughters reach 13 years of age and sons 11 years of age. Women are permitted to file for continued custody until a daughter is married or a son finishes his education. Under federal law, fathers are permitted to seek custody of an under-11-year-old son if they feel the child has become “too soft.”

The law provides for corporal punishment for sexual relations and pregnancy outside of marriage. The government may imprison and deport noncitizen women who bear children out of wedlock. In February a Fujairah court sentenced an unmarried woman to three months in prison and deportation after a medical visit revealed she was having complications associated with pregnancy.

Women who worked in the private sector, and especially nonnationals, regularly did not receive equal benefits and reportedly faced discrimination in promotions and pay (see section 7.d.). Labor law prohibits women from working in hazardous, strenuous, or physically or morally harmful jobs.

While education is equally accessible, federal law prohibits coeducation in public universities, except in the United Arab Emirates University’s Executive MBA program and in certain graduate programs at Zayed University. A large number of private schools, private universities, and institutions, however, were coeducational. According to officials, local women represent more than 70 percent of national higher education students.

The government excluded women from certain social and economic benefits, including land grants for building houses, because tribal family law often designates men as the heads of families.

The government has a Gender Balance Council to promote a greater role for female citizens, but not noncitizens, working outside the home.

Children

Birth Registration: Children generally derive citizenship from their parents. As noted above the children of UAE citizen mothers married to foreigners did not receive citizenship automatically. The government registered noncitizen births, including of Bidoon. The criminalization of sexual relations outside of marriage prevented the registration of children born out of wedlock and, as a result, access to travel documents.

Education: Education is compulsory through the ninth grade; however, the law was not enforced, and some children did not attend school, especially children of noncitizens. The government provided free primary education only to citizens. Noncitizen children could enroll in public schools only if they scored more than 90 percent on entrance examinations, which authorities administered only in Arabic. In September 2018 the Ministry of Education made all public schools coeducational from the first to fifth grades, starting with that year’s first grade class.

Child Abuse: The law prohibits child abuse, and the government has taken steps to increase awareness of the issue, including the Child Safety Campaign, which reinforced the role of media in protecting the rights of children. The government provided shelter and help for child victims of abuse or sexual exploitation. In March, the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children opened a new shelter for children up to 12 years of age who have been victims of violence and exploitation and have no parents or dependents. The shelter has capacity to accommodate 25 children and provides social and medical services.

Early and Forced Marriage: The legal age of marriage for both men and women is 18, unless a judge gives approval for an earlier marriage. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women previously reported on the persistence of unregistered child marriages.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law criminalizes the sexual exploitation of children, with a minimum penalty for conviction of 10 years in prison. Consensual sex is illegal outside of marriage, carrying a minimum penalty of one year in prison. The penalty for conviction of sex with children younger than 14 is life imprisonment. Distribution and consumption of child pornography is illegal.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There is no indigenous Jewish community. There were no synagogues and no formal recognition of the very small foreign Jewish population (which constituted less than 1 percent of the population); the foreign Jewish community could conduct regular prayer services in rented space. In May the Anti-Defamation League announced the appointment of the first chief rabbi of the Jewish community in the UAE at an event cohosted with the UAE Embassy in Washington. Occasionally, social media contained anti-Semitic remarks and local Arabic print media featured anti-Semitic caricatures in political cartoons. There was anti-Semitic material available at some book fairs, including a few that operated with government oversight.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment, education, air travel and other transportation, access to health care, or the provision of other state services.

Public and private facilities provided education, health services, sports, and vocational rehabilitation for persons with disabilities. Many of the facilities were reserved for citizens.

The Ministry of Community Development (formerly Social Affairs) is the central body responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and raising awareness at the federal and local level. In accordance with the law, most public buildings provided some form of access for persons with disabilities.

Government entities, including the Ministry of Community Development, the Services for Educational Development Foundation for Inclusion, and the Sports Organizations for Persons with Disabilities, sponsored conferences and workshops emphasizing the inclusion and integration of persons with disabilities into schools and workplaces. The government continued to raise public awareness of societal inclusivity through its National Strategy for Empowering People with Special Needs. The policy includes investment in research and development for health and rehabilitation, an integrative education system, vocational rehabilitation and employment, creation of unified criteria for building requirements, social protection, and societal integration through cultural, sports, and social activities. In July Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai Mohammad Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum directed service-related organizations to designate a person in charge of facilitating services for persons with disabilities.

Various departments within the Ministries of Human Resources and Emiratization (formerly Labor), Education, and Community Development are responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, and the government enforced these rights in employment, housing, and entitlement programs (see also section 7).

The government sponsored several initiatives to host international conferences for persons with disabilities emphasizing rights, opportunities, and the importance of social inclusion. The government also improved accessibility of public facilities. In March Abu Dhabi hosted the Special Olympics World Games in 2019 and in November Dubai hosted the world’s first Accessible Tourism International Summit.

Approximately 90 percent of the country’s residents were noncitizens, more than half of whom originated from South Asia. Societal discrimination against noncitizens was prevalent and occurred in most areas of daily life, including employment, education, housing, social interaction, and health care.

The law allows for criminalizing commercial disputes and bankruptcy, which led to discrimination against foreigners. Authorities enforced these laws selectively and allowed citizens to threaten noncitizen businesspersons and foreign workers with harsh prison sentences to assure a favorable outcome in commercial disputes.

Both civil law and sharia criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity. Under sharia individuals who engage in consensual same-sex sexual conduct could be subject to the death penalty. Dubai’s penal code allows for up to a 10-year prison sentence for conviction of such activity, while Abu Dhabi’s penal code allows for up to a 14-year prison sentence. There were no reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex activity.

The law does not extend antidiscrimination protections to LGBTI individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. There were no government efforts to address potential discrimination.

By law wearing clothing deemed inappropriate for one’s sex is a punishable offense. The government deported foreign residents and referred the cases of individuals who wore clothing deemed inappropriate to the public prosecutor.

The law permits doctors to conduct sex reassignment surgery when there are “psychological” and “physiological” signs of gender and sex disparity. The penalty for performing an unwarranted “sex correction” surgery is three to 10 years in prison. In 2018 the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of First Instance denied a January request for legal gender recognition by three local transgender persons who sought legally to change their names and update their gender on official documents. The Federal Appeals Court upheld the lower court’s ruling in March 2018. The Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation rejected their final appeal in December 2018.

Due to social conventions and potential repression, LGBTI organizations did not operate openly, nor were gay pride marches or gay rights advocacy events held.

There were reports of LGBTI persons being questioned in national airports on the basis of appearance and behavior.

Noncitizens and, to a lesser extent, citizens with HIV/AIDS and other diseases faced discrimination. Legal protections against employment and education discrimination for individuals with HIV/AIDS, as well as free access to HIV treatment and care programs, existed for citizens; however, noncitizens did not have these rights. The government does not grant residency or work visas to persons with certain communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS. Noncitizens who test positive for these diseases may be detained and deported. Doctors are required to inform authorities of HIV/AIDS cases, reportedly discouraging individuals from seeking testing or treatment.

Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, including spousal rape. The maximum legal penalty for rape is life imprisonment. The law also provides for injunctive relief, personal protection orders, and protective exclusion orders (similar to restraining orders) for female victims of violence. The government enforced the law effectively in reported cases. Courts in some cases imposed the maximum punishment for rape. The government provided shelters, counseling, and other assistance for survivors of rape or violence. According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), from April 2017 to March 2019, police in England and Wales recorded 53,977 rapes; however, the proportion of offenses prosecuted fell to 1.7 percent, the lowest level since records began a decade ago. NGOs warned that police and Crown Prosecutorial Services have raised the bar for evidence needed, causing victims to drop out of the justice process.

The law criminalizes domestic violence. Those who abuse spouses, partners, or family members face tougher punishment than those who commit similar offenses in a nondomestic context.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C. The law also requires health and social care professionals and teachers to report to police cases of FGM/C on girls less than 18 years of age. It is also illegal to take a British national or permanent resident abroad for FGM/C or to help someone trying to do this. The penalty is up to 14 years in prison. An FGM protection order, a civil measure that can be applied for through a family court, offers the means of protecting actual or potential victims from FGM/C under the civil law. Breach of an FGM protection order is a criminal offense carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison.

FGM/C is practiced in the country, particularly within some diaspora communities where FGM/C is prevalent. There were 298 FGM prevention orders issued to protect children perceived as at-risk of FGM/C. In March a court sentenced a Ugandan woman to 11 years for performing FGM/C on her three-year-old daughter in 2017. Her Ghanaian partner was acquitted of all charges. This was the first FGM/C conviction in the UK.

The government took nonjudicial steps to address FGM/C, including awareness-raising efforts, a hotline, and requiring medical professionals to report FGM/C observed on patients. The National Health Service reported 4,495 newly recorded cases between April 2017 and March 2018.

Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes sexual harassment at places of work. Authorities used different laws to prosecute cases of harassment outside the workplace. In July the government launched a consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace “to gather evidence that the current laws on protecting people… are effective.” The consultations were a response to a campaign started in June by an alliance of NGOs including Action Aid, Amnesty International, and Time’s Up UK calling for employers to be found liable if they fail to protect their staff from sexual harassment at work.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The law provides the same legal status and rights for women and men. Women were subject to some discrimination in employment.

Children

Birth Registration: A child born in the UK receives the country’s citizenship at birth if one of the parents is a UK citizen or a legally settled resident. Children born in Northern Ireland may opt for UK, Irish, or dual citizenship. A child born in an overseas territory is a UK overseas territories citizen if at least one of the child’s parents has citizenship. All births must be registered within 42 days in the district where the baby was born; unregistered births were uncommon.

A Northern Ireland citizen undertook legal action against the UK Home Office for a claimed breach of rights in relation to citizenship and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The citizen identified only as Irish and not as British but was told that under the law she is also a British citizen and legally registered as such despite her objection.

Child Abuse: There are laws preventing the abuse of children punishable up to a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. Social service departments in each local authority in the country maintained confidential child protection registers containing details of children at risk of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect. The registers also included child protection plans for each child.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum legal age for marriage is 16. In England, Northern Ireland, and Wales, persons younger than 18 require the written consent of parents or guardians, and the underage person must present a birth certificate. The legal minimum age to enter into a marriage in Scotland is 16 and does not require parental consent.

Forcing someone to marry against his or her will is a criminal offense throughout the UK with a maximum prison sentence of seven years. Forcing a UK citizen into marriage anywhere in the world is a criminal offense in England and Wales. In 2018 the joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Home Office Forced Marriage Unit provided support in more than 1,764 cases of potential or confirmed forced marriage cases involving UK citizens, which represented a 47-percent increase from the previous year. Assistance included safety advice as well as “reluctant spouse cases” in which the UK government assisted forced marriage victims in preventing their unwanted spouse from moving to the UK. The government offers lifelong anonymity for victims of forced marriage to encourage more to come forward.

In Scotland 30 cases of forced marriage were reported in 2018, up from 18 in 2017. The Forced Marriage Unit stated that the increase in cases might have been due to an increased awareness of the criminality of forced marriage.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The penalties for sexual offenses against children and the commercial sexual exploitation of children range up to life imprisonment. Authorities enforced the law. The minimum age of consensual sex in the UK is 16. The law prohibits child pornography in all parts of the UK.

International Child Abductions: The UK including Bermuda is party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The 2011 census recorded the Jewish population at 263,346. Some considered this an underestimate, and both the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the British Board of Deputies suggested that the actual figure was approximately 300,000.

Almost two-thirds of the anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester–the two largest Jewish communities in the UK. The CST recorded 947 anti-Semitic incidents in Greater London in 2019, three fewer than the 950 incidents recorded in London in 2018. The CST recorded a fall of 11 percent in anti-Semitic incidents in Greater Manchester, from 251 incidents in 2018 to 223 incidents in 2019.

In February several MPs left the Labour Party, some of whom cited the alleged “institutionalized anti-Semitism” as a reason for their decision. In the same month, the Labour Party released figures showing that the party received 673 accusations of anti-Semitism committed by party members between April 2018 and January 2019.

In May the EHRC launched a formal probe to investigate whether the party has “unlawfully discriminated against harassed or victimized people because they are Jewish.” The investigation continued and was expected to be concluded before the year’s end. The Labour Party released a statement to say it is committed to fully cooperating with the investigation.

On July 10, the BBC’s highly regarded investigative program, Panorama, detailed allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and the party’s alleged mishandling of the problem. The program focused on the testimony of eight former members of the party’s Disputes Team staff and Jewish party activists. In the program former party staffers claimed the Leader’s Office interfered in the handling of anti-Semitism cases and said General Secretary Jennie Formby interfered in the party’s top disciplinary body, the National Constitutional Committee. Later in July a YouGov poll for The Times showed that 70 percent of Labour members viewed anti-Semitism as a “genuine” problem.

On November 25 in The Times newspaper, the chief rabbi of the country’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ephraim Mirvis, called the Labour Party’s claims to be confronting anti-Semitism “a mendacious fiction.” He called anti-Semitism “a new poison–sanctioned from the top” of the party. The Labour Party spokesperson denied the rabbi’s assertions, and, in a BBC interview on November 26, party leader Jeremy Corbyn defended the party’s record on addressing anti-Semitic remarks by its members and welcomed a dialogue with the chief rabbi.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government effectively enforced the law.

The EHRC, contended persons with disabilities were still treated as “second-class citizens,” because progress in promoting improvements by governments, businesses, and the wider community had stalled.

Bermudian law protects the rights of persons with disabilities in the workplace. The law does not include any protection from discrimination on mental health grounds.

Government figures showed a steep rise in official complaints about its disability benefit assessment process, which was last reformed in 2013. In the year ending in February, the Personal Independent Payment was the subject of 9,320 complaints, versus 1,391 in 2016-17. NGOs stated the figures proved that the process was “completely inadequate” for persons with disabilities, adding that the claimant won 73 percent of cases appealed at tribunal.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2017-18 reported that persons with disabilities were more likely to be victims of crime than persons without disabilities. The survey estimated 14.9 percent of persons with disabilities were victims of at least one crime, compared to 12.5 percent of the total respondents.

The EHRC provided legal advice and support to individuals, a hotline, and could conduct formal investigations, arrange conciliation, require persons or organizations to adopt action plans to ensure compliance with the law, and apply for injunctions to prevent acts of unlawful discrimination.

The law prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination, but Travellers, Roma, and persons of African, Afro-Caribbean, South Asian, and Middle Eastern origin at times reported mistreatment on racial or ethnic grounds.

Racially motivated crime remained the most commonly reported hate crime. On October 15, the Home Office reported 78,991 racial hate crimes in England and Wales in 2018/19, an increase of 11 percent over 2017/18.

In Scotland racial or other discriminatory motivation may be an “aggravating factor” in crimes. Race-based hate crime remained the most common form of hate crime in Scotland for 2018-19, accounting for 67 percent of all hate crimes.

In Northern Ireland there were 702 racially motived hate crimes between April 2018 and March 2019, an increase of 93 (13 percent) over the previous year. “Right to Rent” rules require all landlords in England to check the immigration documents of prospective tenants to verify they were not irregular or undocumented migrants. Landlords can be fined up to 3,000 pounds ($3,800) for noncompliance. In May the UK High Court ruled that the Right to Rent scheme is incompatible with human rights law and found that it discriminates against anyone without a British passport, including foreign nationals, who have a right to rent. Nevertheless, the rules remain in force.

“Right to Rent” rules require all landlords in England to check the immigration documents of prospective tenants to verify they were not irregular or undocumented migrants. Landlords can be fined up to 3,000 pounds ($3,800) for noncompliance. In May the UK High Court ruled that the Right to Rent scheme is incompatible with human rights law and found that it discriminates against anyone without a British passport, including foreign nationals, who have a right to rent. Nevertheless, the rules remain in force.

In Bermuda, where 54 percent of residents describe themselves as black, arrests of black persons constituted 84 percent of all arrest cases in 2017.

The law in England and Wales prohibits discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation. It encourages judges to impose a greater sentence in assault cases where the victim’s sexual orientation was a motive for the hostility, and many local police forces demonstrated an increasing awareness of the problem and trained officers to identify and moderate these attacks. On October 15, the Home Office reported an increase of 25 percent in hate crimes against sexual orientation compared with 2017-18.

Scottish law criminalizes behavior that is threatening, hateful, or otherwise offensive at a regulated soccer match. In Scotland sexual motivation may be an “aggravating factor” in crimes. Crime aggravated by sexual orientation was the second most common type of hate crime in Scotland. Hate crime against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons remained the same as in 2016-17, representing 16 percent of all reported hate crimes.

Hate speech, notably against Muslims, in some traditional media, particularly tabloid newspapers, continued to be a problem, with dissemination of biased or ill-founded information. On October 15, the Home Office reported 3,530 religious hate crimes against Muslims in England and Wales in 2018/19. Online hate speech also was a problem. A man posted racist anti-Islamic comments with Nazi terminology on Instagram in August.

Scottish law criminalizes behavior that is threatening, hateful, or otherwise offensive at a regulated soccer match, and penalizes any threat of serious violence and threats to incite religious hatred through the mail or the internet.

In Northern Ireland crimes related to faith or religion totaled 23 for the same period, marking a reduction of 17 (43 percent) over the previous year. Sectarian crimes increased by 46 (8 percent).