16-Year-Old Vitsebsk Resident Complained To UN Committee On Human Rights About Belarus

In December 2014, the girl was taken straight away from school without any explanation by some unknown people and brought to an orphan asylum.

The sixteen year old resident of Vitsebsk turned to the UN Committee on Human Rights with a complaint about her human rights violation in the Republic of Belarus, human rights activist Pavel Levinau, who helped the girl to issue the complaint, told BelaPAN.

Levinau explained that in December 2014 the girl was taken straight away from school without any explanation by some unknown people and brought to an orphan asylum.

“She refused to go. She was threatened with being put into psychiatric clinic in case she would refuse to go, – the human rights activist said. – She was kept in the orphanage without any judicial decision, only on the basis of the Vitsebsk Soviet district juvenile affairs commission’s decision. Although the Constitution states clearly that it’s possible to remove the child from the family on the basis of a court order only.”

According Levinau, the trial was held only on July 13, 2015, and the verdict read that the court found no reason for depriving the girls’ parents of their parental rights and the child was to be returned to the family. She was able to return home only at the end of July 2015.

He underlined that the girl turned to the Vitsebsk prosecutor with a complaint about her security and privacy right violation, but he refused to resort to court with a lawsuit in defense of her rights. Then she attempted to file a legal claim on her own, but first she was asked to pay state fees for filing a complaint, and then the court stated that the cases of rights infringement were not under the court’s jurisdiction. According to Levinau, higher instance courts have upheld this position.

In this regard, the girl decided to appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee. “The complaint was sent today, – Levinau said. – It will take two weeks for the complaint to get there. Then, within a month or two a decision will be made whether to accept it for consideration. I think that it will be accepted.”

Regarding the timing of the complaint consideration, Levinau says, it usually takes about three to five years. “Unfortunately, it takes long time to consider a complaint,” – he said.