Stefanchuk promises LGBT people to consider their rights in new Civil Code

Stefanchuk meets with LGBT activists. Photo: Insight/Facebook

Representatives of LGBT organizations held a meeting with Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk. The parliamentary speaker confirmed the authorities’ readiness to integrate the community’s demands into legislation in order to ensure equal rights, according to the Insight organization.

The participants discussed the draft of the new Civil Code and voiced concern over the document’s current content. During the dialogue, representatives of various LGBT organizations presented a list of necessary changes.

The activists demanded that the code exclude the provision stating that de facto family relations are a union exclusively between a man and a woman. They also insisted on integrating the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity into the text of the document and legally recognizing same-sex partnerships concluded abroad.

Ruslan Stefanchuk said he had already personally submitted two important amendments that correspond to the community’s requests. These concern restoring the current definition of family and removing the wording that defines a de facto union as cohabitation specifically between a man and a woman. The speaker expects deputies to support these changes in the second reading.

On the remaining points, the head of the Rada promised to hold additional consultations with MPs. Representatives of LGBT structures emphasized that unless all their demands are taken into account, the draft code is unlikely to receive their support.

As previously reported by the UOJ, Zelensky expressed support for LGBT people in Ukraine.

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