AUCCRO initiates a meeting with Zelensky to discuss family policy issues

AUCCRO initiates a personal meeting with the President of Ukraine. Photo: RFE/RL

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) initiates a meeting with the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky to discuss the need for a state family policy, the issues of combating domestic violence and the problems of commercial surrogacy, reports the website of the organization.

"The Council of Churches notes the need to form a state family policy, given the catastrophic demographic situation in Ukraine, a large percentage of divorces and children raised in single-parent families," the report says. “It is necessary to direct considerable efforts of the state and civil society to support families, maternity and paternity, to introduce programmes on the preparation for family life in the educational process, to create appropriate social and other conditions for the minimization of abortions, to liquidate the system of maintaining and upbringing children in boarding institutions and to popularize adoption among citizens of Ukraine.”

AUCCRO noted the need to unite the efforts of the authorities and the secular and religious community in addressing the problem of domestic violence, which has increased under the conditions of the quarantine introduced in the country, "however, instead of ratifying the so-called Istanbul Convention, which is gender ideology biased, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations has consistently urged the Government and Parliament to develop national legislation to combat domestic violence and violence against women. In other words, to follow the path of those European countries that have also refused to ratify the Convention".

Also, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches wants to discuss with the President the problems of commercial surrogacy, which is prohibited in many European countries, but in Ukraine it has become a "child trafficking business”.

"These issues, as well as combining the efforts of the government and the religious community in helping the needy, who suffered from the Russian aggression and the negative consequences of the quarantine on the economy of the state, require an urgent solution through a systematic and constructive dialogue between the government and the religious community," the message emphasizes.

As reported, on June 2, 2020, the AUCCRO and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal discussed the problems of religious life under the adaptive quarantine. The meeting was attended by the Vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis Bishop Victor (Kotsaba) of Baryshevka.

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