Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape of a person, regardless of gender, as well as domestic violence are criminal offenses. Penalties for domestic violence depend on the level of injury to the survivor or victim, ranging from required public service to life imprisonment.
In the first eight months of the year, authorities received 73 reports of rape, compared with 61 during the same period in 2021 and 63 in 2020. Convicted rapists generally received prison sentences of three to five years. No law specifically criminalizes spousal rape, and no data on spousal rape was available.
Although the law criminalizes domestic abuse, it remained a pervasive problem. In the first eight months of the year, police registered 4,318 criminal offenses related to domestic violence, compared with 4,206 in 2021 and 7,126 in 2020. According to the Department of Statistics, 21 domestic violence-related femicides were registered in the first eight months of the year, compared with 28 in 2020 and 21 in 2019. On March 15, parliament approved amendments to the Law on Domestic Violence by introducing an order for protection from domestic violence that allows police to separate abusers from their victims. The government allocated 1.53 million euros ($1.64 million) to specialized assistance centers working in the field of domestic violence prevention.
According to a 2020 survey by the Women’s Information Center, only 15 percent of those surveyed who had experienced domestic violence had contacted police. In 2021, the Department of Statistics carried out a survey, which found that 25.2 percent of women and 20 percent of men have experienced physical violence, including threats, or sexual violence.
The government operated a 24/7 national hotline and 29 crisis centers for survivors of domestic violence. On April 11, the government adopted its Action Plan for Domestic Violence Prevention and Assistance to Victims for 2022.
Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment. The law defines sexual harassment as offensive verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, towards a person with whom they work, conduct business, or have other relations. Harassment is defined in the same law as unwanted conduct related to the sex of a person that occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, and creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or offensive environment. Pretrial investigations of sexual harassment were relatively rare. According to the equal opportunities ombudsperson, harassment is underreported due to intimidation, fear of job loss, or lack of knowledge about one’s rights regarding sexual harassment.
Reproductive Rights: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities. On August 12, the minister of health decided that women who wish to terminate pregnancy would be able to do so without surgical intervention, by taking drugs prescribed by a doctor.
The country lacked consistent sex education programs, and there was a lack of publicly available information of contraception as a method of family planning. According to the Family Planning and Sexual Health Association, students at school receive little or no information about contraception and how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections including HIV and AIDS. According to the Human Rights Coalition, some young women and girls in rural areas, mostly Roma, had limited access to reproductive health services and modern contraceptives due to poverty, social stigma, and lack of parental consent.
The government provided access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence. The country had no rape crisis center, but a network of specialized NGOs provided social, psychological, health, and legal assistance to survivors of domestic and sexual violence. A national women’s helpline also assisted survivors. The Ministry of Social Security and Labor supported psychological consulting support services. During a May 20 conference entitled “The system of assistance to victims of sexual abuse in Lithuania: reality and vision for improvement,” the speaker of the parliament noted that the war in Ukraine revealed shortcomings in assistance to victims of sexual abuse in Lithuania, as the system was ineffective and lacked trained specialists. NGO experts noted that, after coming to Lithuania, refugee survivors of sexual abuse did not receive the effective help they needed. On August 24, the Vilnius University’s Faculty of Law, the Centre Against Human Trafficking and Exploitation, and the Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association JurFem launched an international campaign “Rape is a war crime,” which aimed to raise awareness about gender-based violence in war zones and provide help to victims of sexual violence. The campaign’s website provides key information on medical, legal, and psychological support available to survivors.
Discrimination: The law provides for the same legal status and rights for women as for men, including family, religious, personal status, and nationality laws, as well as laws related to labor, property, inheritance, employment, access to credit, and owning or managing businesses or property. The government enforced the law effectively. Women continued to experience unequal access to pension benefits and the gender wage gap remained significant, leaving women more exposed to poverty risk (see section 7.d.).
Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination
The law prohibits discrimination against ethnic or national minorities, but intolerance and societal discrimination persisted. According to the 2021 census, approximately 15.4 percent of the population were members of minority ethnic groups, including Russians, Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Karaites, and Jews.
On January 18, parliament legalized the original spelling of names and surnames with Latin characters in personal documents. The law, which came into force on May 1, states that citizens can use non-Lithuanian Latin characters – Q, W, and X – in their names in identification documents. A further step to legalize use of Polish diacritic marks was not passed. This is a change long demanded by the country’s Polish community, the country’s largest ethnic minority.
In August the country reorganized schools nationwide, one result of which was the closure of several small Polish-language schools around Trakai. Polish-language schooling remains available in the municipality.
Roma, whose population in the 2021 census was 2,251 persons (0.07 percent of the country’s total population), continued to experience discrimination. After a Roma settlement in Kirtimai was demolished in 2020, housing remained the main challenge for Roma, who often experienced discrimination by landlords who did not want to rent to them. In a 2021 poll conducted by the NGO Diversity Development Group and the media monitoring and journalism innovation program Media4change, Roma remained the most unfavorably viewed ethnic group in the country, as 61 percent of respondents indicated that they would not want to live in a neighborhood with Roma or rent them an apartment.
In 2020, Vilnius Municipality approved a new Roma integration program for 2020-23. The plan offered new solutions to strengthen the areas of health care, social care, and culture, but provided very limited measures in the field of housing, employment, and education.
Children
Birth Registration: Citizenship may be acquired either by birth in the country or through one’s parents. The government registered all births promptly.
Child Abuse: The law bans all violence against children. Sexual abuse of children remained a problem despite prison sentences of up to 13 years for the crime. In the first eight months of the year, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 37 cases of child rape and 192 cases involving other forms of child sexual abuse. In 2022, the Ministry of Social Security and Labor funded 10 NGOs that provide comprehensive services to children who have experienced or witnessed violence. The government operated a children’s support center to provide medical and psychological care for children, including those who suffered from various types of violence. It also operated a national center in Vilnius to provide legal, psychological, and medical assistance to sexually abused children and their families.
The Child Rights Protection Service reported that in the first half of the year 1,345 children suffered physical violence (compared to 780 during the same period in 2021).
In the first eight months of the year, the children’s rights ombudsperson reported receiving 121 complaints and started 41 investigations on their own initiative.
During the first eight months of the year, Child Line (a hotline for children and youth) received 96,071 telephone calls from children and responded to 98,712 of those calls. Child Line also received and answered 478 letters from children, whose concerns ranged from relations with their parents and friends to family violence and sexual abuse.
Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The minimum age for marriage is 18.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: Individuals involving a child in pornographic events or using a child in the production of pornographic material are subject to imprisonment for up to five years. Persons who offer to purchase, acquire, sell, transport, or hold a child in captivity are subject to imprisonment for three to 12 years. The Office of the Ombudsperson for Children’s Rights reported receiving no complaints of alleged sexual exploitation of children during the first eight months of the year. According to the Ministry of the Interior, during the first eight months of the year, officials registered 70 criminal cases involving child pornography. The age of consent is 16. On November 29, the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour launched a new Child Helpline operating throughout the country.
Institutionalized Children: According to experts from the Human Rights Monitoring Institute and other NGOs, deinstitutionalization of childcare was slow, and 1,350 children were still in state care institutions. As of September 1, the children’s rights ombudsperson had opened three investigations regarding abuses of children’s rights in orphanages and large-family foster homes.
Antisemitism
The Jewish community consists of approximately 4,000 persons. There were reports of antisemitism on the internet and in public. There were several incidents during the year that Holocaust memorial sites were defaced with the “V” and “Z” symbols of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On March 3, in Pasaltuonis village of Jurbarkas district, a monument to Soviet troops was vandalized with the inscription “Putler Kaput!” and a swastika. Police started a pretrial investigation.
On April 1, Holocaust memorial stones in Paneriai on the outskirts of Vilnius were defaced with the “V” and “Z” symbols. Police reported that a pretrial investigation had been opened. Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonyte denounced the desecration as “a clear provocation aimed at antagonizing the public in Lithuania.” She said in a statement, “In one of the most tragic places in Lithuania’s history, where the Nazis and other criminals murdered thousands of innocent persons, the provocateurs have splashed yet another symbol of hatred.”
On April 12, the Human Rights Committee of parliament condemned the desecration of the Paneriai memorial. On April 21, the police reported that the Holocaust memorial in Paneriai was vandalized again with symbols of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Police said two letters “V” had been painted on the memorial, adding that the incident was being investigated.
On May 12, a monument to Holocaust victims in Darbenai village, Kretinga District was vandalized. Police reported that a pretrial investigation was started against acts of vandalism in a cemetery or other place of public respect, or for a grave vandalized.
Police reported that on August 23, monuments for Holocaust victims in Virbalis village of Vilkaviskis district were found painted with “Z” letters. Police started a pretrial investigation.
On September 18, the Holocaust monuments at Paneriai, including those to Lithuanian freedom fighters and the Soviet-era memorial to victims of fascism, were defaced with “Z” letters. The vandals similarly defaced the exterior of the on-site museum and even surrounding trees. They used paints resistant to removal and avoided the Jewish memorial that is surrounded by security cameras.
The Jewish Community of Lithuania condemned the attacks on the Holocaust memorial in the Paneriai memorial. “The Lithuanian Jewish Community condemns the recent cynical vandalism at the Ponar Memorial Complex mass murder site. Institutional and public apathy regarding such attacks is unacceptable,” the Jewish community said in a statement, calling on the country’s responsible institutions to investigate “this disgusting vandalism as quickly as possible.”
On December 15, parliament passed a law establishing a commission of historians to review public “objects” (monuments, symbols, etc.) which support totalitarian regimes and ideologies. Under this law, the commission has the power to remove public objects which glorify totalitarian ideologies, including Soviet and Nazi memorials.
The municipal government of Vilnius took no action during the year on the memorial plaque honoring Jonas Noreika, a known collaborator with the Nazi occupation regime. The original plaque honoring Noreika was destroyed on April 7, 2019, but it was replaced by a youth organization Pro Patria in September 2019 and remains in place.
The municipal government of Ukmerge district continued to resist calls for the removal of a monument to former partisan Juozas Krikstaponis, who, based on the conclusion of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, took part in the killing of Jews in Belarus in 1941.
Trafficking in Persons
See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.
Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics
Criminalization: The law did not criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, or intersex (LGBTQI+) persons. Facially neutral laws, such as laws on immorality or loitering, were not disproportionally applied to LGBTQI+ persons.
Violence against LGBTQI+ Persons: LGBTQI+ community members reported that acts of violence against LGBTQI+ persons occurred, but that most LGBTQI+ persons did not report such acts due to a lack of trust in the legal system. Transgender persons were vulnerable and regularly experienced extreme violence and death threats.
Discrimination: The law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, and sexual orientation may be an aggravating factor in crimes against LGBTQI+ persons. These laws were enforced. There is no legal basis for same-sex couples to be recognized by the state outside of civil or religious marriage. Transgender persons faced legal barriers and discriminatory practices often inhibited them from receiving health care. Societal attitudes toward LGBTQI+ persons remained largely negative, and LGBTQI+ persons experienced stigma, discrimination, and violence. In a 2021 poll conducted by the NGO Diversity Development Group and the media monitoring and journalism innovation program Media4change, 42 percent of those polled said they would not want to live in the neighborhood with LGBTQI+ persons, and 46 percent would not want to rent housing to them.
Availability of Legal Gender Recognition: On August 4, the Health Minister approved a procedure for diagnosing and treating gender identity disorders. Persons seeking hormone treatment must consult with a family doctor or psychiatrist, who may then refer the person to a medical specialist council. Diagnosis and treatment services were to be paid from the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund.
In February an order signed in December 2021 by Minister of Justice Evelina Dobrovolska took effect, allowing transgender persons to change their names with proof of medical diagnosis, ending the requirement to undergo surgical procedures or sterilization.
Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices Specifically Targeting LGBTQI+ Individuals: No laws prohibited so-called conversion therapy practices. According to LGBTQI+ advocates, there was no public information about how or if these practices occur.
Restrictions of Freedom of Expression, Association, or Peaceful Assembly: The country restricts freedom of expression for LGBTQI+ topics. The law restricts any information that “encourages a concept of marriage and family other than the one stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania or in the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania” as detrimental to minors. It is illegal to publish material that promotes the sexual abuse and harassment of minors, sexual relations among minors, or “sexual relations.” LGBTQI+ groups stated it served to limit LGBTQI+ awareness-raising efforts, as government agencies that oversaw publishing and broadcast media applied it prejudicially against coverage of LGBTQI+ topics.
Vilnius held a Baltic pride parade, permitted by authorities and secured by police. Several senior political figures, including from the governing coalition, participated.
Persons with Disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities. There was no proactive enforcement of these requirements. The Ministry of Social Security reported that at the beginning of this year there were 147,500 persons of working age with disabilities, and only one in three of them was employed. On July 19, parliament adopted amendments to legislation expanding opportunities for those with disabilities to participate in the labor market. Support measures include the help of a work assistant to a disabled person when he or she gets a job and support to the employer in adapting the workplace and work environment. The amendments were scheduled to enter in force on January 1, 2023. As of September 1, the equal opportunities ombudsperson had received 31 complaints of alleged discrimination based on disability and found violations in seven cases.
The law requires all schools that provide compulsory and universally accessible education to accommodate students with disabilities. The country has a tradition of separate schools for children with various disabilities. In 2020 parliament amended the Law on Education to eliminate discriminatory provisions regarding children with disabilities who need accommodation or educational support. According to these provisions, which were scheduled to be implemented gradually and fully enter into force on September 1, 2024, children with disabilities who need accommodation or educational support would be able to attend a general education school in their place of residence, and schools would no longer be able to refuse to admit them and refer them to separate so-called special schools.
The law prohibits persons with disabilities who have been deprived of their legal capacity from voting or standing for election. According to the Central Electoral Commission, 67 percent of polling stations were accessible to persons with disabilities in the 2019 presidential elections and 93 percent in 2020 parliamentary elections.
According to the NGO the Lithuanian Forum for Persons with Disabilities (LFPD), deinstitutionalization has been slow in the country, with too little attention paid and inadequate funding devoted to the creation of independent living arrangements for individuals with disabilities, as well as opposition from local communities.
According to the LFPD survey conducted in 2021, only 20 percent of women with disabilities sought help in cases of domestic violence. Surveys showed that 93 percent of the surveyed women with disabilities have experienced psychological violence at least once and 84 percent have encountered physical violence at least once in their life. More than 60 percent of respondents experienced systemic psychological violence; 23.5 percent experienced intense sexual violence, and 25.8 percent experienced systematic physical violence.
Other Societal Violence or Discrimination
The I Can Live NGO coalition worked with drug addicts and other vulnerable groups and noted that some individuals with HIV and AIDS continued to be subject to discrimination, including in employment, and were treated with fear and aversion. According to the People Living with HIV Stigma Index conducted by the NGO coalition in 2018, 90 percent of persons with HIV feared revealing their status to others, and 83 percent were not aware of laws protecting them from discrimination. According to experts, although effective HIV treatment is available, more than half of those with HIV did not seek treatment because of the stigma associated with HIV in society.