Development of legislation on criminal liability for coercion to marriage in the aspect of combating gender-based violence

Abstract

Ukraine undertook to comprehensively protect universal human rights, to create free from discrimination, physical or mental violence an environment. Meanwhile, the beginning of the large-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation against our country was marked by an increase in the number of human rights violations, including those related to gender-based violence.
 The article examines the national criminal-legal mechanisms of combating coercion to marriage as a form of gender-based violence. It is noted that the criminalization of coercion to marriage, which took place in connection with the fulfillment of the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, was perceived as premature by many researchers. Currently, there are no statistics on forced marriages in Ukraine. At the same time, representatives of public organizations, a number of researchers, mass media confirm the existence of such a phenomenon in our country. Forced marriages are common among the Roma population of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the russian military aggression cases of forced marriages of the military with women from the occupied territories are recorded. These facts are an additional argument in favor of the enshrinement of criminal liability for coercion to marriage in the legislation of Ukraine. Оn the other hand, the lack of a clear definition of the concept of “coercion” in Criminal code of Ukraine makes it necessary to specify the objective side of coercion to marriage. Based on the analysis of scientific and other literature, taking into account the useful legal experience of the foreign countries, the need to establish criminal liability only for forced marriage is substantiated. For this purpose, it is proposed to establish specific methods of this crime: violence or threats of violence. This will help to avoid excesses in the criminalization of coercion to marriage, will add greater socially dangerous to the act, and will also make this norm clearer and contribute to its more effective application in practice. Considering the fact that the Ukrainian legislation on criminal liability enshrines a gender-neutral definition of coercion to marriage, criminological studies regarding men as victims of these crimes are promising.